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Fair enough. I had never thought of anything the size of the state of Georgia to be a siege.

Physical walking gives most of them a comfortable 30 km/day or so tempo. They have the cars and tanks to move more people than the entire US ground forces have, too.

And last but not least you forget the paratroopers can be a problem on their own. The LW has more pilots and paratroopers than the US police and Army forces in these states! And you ask why paratroop? Because that will give them an edge in addition to surprise.

Good point on the paratroopers, I hadn't considered those. I will have to consider their use for a bit. Transport aircraft are not in the air at the start of the scenario but I assume thats an ommission rather than by intention. If they are in the air that could be a nasty surprise for places like Benning, if they are on the ground they will stay there.

German artillery won't be effective against AFVs, and a mass attempt to break out can be countered with superior American artillery. There's a reason why the American MLRS system is known as a "grid square removal system". It's longer ranged, and denser in effect than Wehrmacht artillery. You don't need to siege by forming a close packed ranks. You just need to be able to keep them from breaking out. And with artillery to destroy large formations, and helicopters and AFVs to hunt down stragglers...

For a bit of perspective on scale here is the primary ATL airport:



Here it is again with with representation of the physical space some full runs of German aircraft (which as I understand it this scenario starts with) take up when parked nose to tail, wing tip to wing tip. You could probably arrange them to take up less area, but in reality in order to actaully be operating them you woul need many times more space but this is just to get an idea of the scale we are dealing with. No account was taken for terminal buildings or areas actually usable for aircraft movement or storage. Areas were calculated by using the wiki specifications for each craft.



Blue = HE111
Orange = BF109s
Grey = FW190s

Beowulf wrote:German artillery won't be effective against AFVs

By mid-day of D1 there will be no AFVs in Georgia. You are left with the ones that arrive from elsewhere. I am pretty sure that unless we are talking battle tanks, other AFVs will suffer. A direct hit of an APC may not pierce the modern armor, but the people inside may simply die all the same due to being splattered on the windows and walls with extreme force.

Beowulf wrote:and a mass attempt to break out can be countered with superior American artillery.

How many artillery pieces per kilometer can the US put on the border of Georgia? I am afraid that will not be even the density achieved during the preparation of the siege of Berlin.

Beowulf wrote:There's a reason why the American MLRS system is known as a "grid square removal system".

The range of an MRLS system typically does not exceed ~40 km.

Beowulf wrote:And with artillery to destroy large formations, and helicopters and AFVs to hunt down stragglers...

How many artillery pieces you have in the neighboring states at the end of the first day that could be realistically 'holding down' an offensive of a force that dense? Do you have enough to even attempt to surround all of Georgia?

Splattered inside their AFVs? Yeah, thats not how that works. If you are worried about spalling save it for the Germans who have no such thing as a kevlar lining. Meanwhile a Bradley's main weapon could turn most German AFVs into swiss cheese, before factoring its TOW systems.

Stas Bush wrote:And you ask why paratroop? Because that will give them an edge in addition to surprise.

Why would they use paratroopers, though? The Luftwaffe stopped all large-scale paratrooper operations in 1941, per Hitler's orders. Fallschirmjäger were relegated to being very terrestrial infantry, apart from a raid to rescue Mussolini.

I'm not sure what point there would be to using them anyway. There are no lines to drop behind, just different patches of rural farmland and outright wilderness. Since there's nothing really stopping the initial Day 1 German advance, there's no reason to deploy paratroopers: By the time they land and recover their cohesion (WW2 paradrops were not terribly elegant), the mechanized/motorized units will have caught up to them and subsequently overtake the now foot-slogging Fallschirmjäger.

Well after Crere they were relegated to ground operations because so many of they died it would have been prohibitive to reform them properly as well as the optics of so many being killed.

In this scenario they have all the early war Fallshirmjager personnel every created, both airborne trained and the later purely ground based ones, so they should have enough for one good air mission assuming they can get them off the ground in the firs tplace. If they could actually take control of Ft Benning or Ft Bragg (less likely) off the bat that wins them a lot leewat in at least one direction. There really isn't much South of Benning on the Army front and then you hit the Gulf so that might let the concentrate on the North, East, and West more effectively.

Patroklos wrote:If you are worried about spalling save it for the Germans who have no such thing as a kevlar lining. Meanwhile a Bradley's main weapon could turn most German AFVs into swiss cheese, before factoring its TOW systems.

That's true. What is also true is that the Germans - for the first several days, if not a week - enjoy a 1000:1 superiority, then 100:1 and only by the third week if the US throws really everything it has the ratio will even out to a normal 20-15:1, where an advanced enough force could contain the offensive... theoretically (that depends on the length of the frontline).

Brother-Captain Gaius wrote:Why would they use paratroopers, though? The Luftwaffe stopped all large-scale paratrooper operations in 1941, per Hitler's orders. Fallschirmjäger were relegated to being very terrestrial infantry, apart from a raid to rescue Mussolini.

Because they are a Nazi horde who have the plans to attack a superpower 60 years ahead in the future and they use all they have? Why not use them? How are they going to land 130 000 airplanes? Nobody explained that to me. There's no point for most LW planes to return back. They will not fit no matter if the Germans even appear around Atlanta metro area and capture half of Georgia by the end of the second day or break of the third day. Meanwhile, armed soldiers landing in droves at 300-400 km away from the main forces gives them a nice edge. The total number of trained paratroopers that ever served the Nazis as Fallschirmjäger was 36 000, whereas the Luftwaffe bomber and fighter crews could easily add another 100 000 men. If they jump, the US would have to deal with lightly armed Germans already at the state borders on D1 (and awaiting soon to come reinforcements) - which is preferrable to them not being there, I think.

I would also wonder if the Luftwaffe bombers and/or fighters even need to bomb installations close to Atlanta. The V2s have a range of 320 km and hitting them with a sudden barrage in the morning would be preferrable. Not to mention the extreme confusion of AFB operators being hit by thousands of ballistic missiles... could potentially lead to a retaliatory nuclear launch against other nuclear powers... which, if happened, would be sort of a win option for the German horde.

What is also important is how much of the US tech can the Germans capture. I bet not much as all the military installations around Atlanta appear to be closed.

If the Germans use FJ, Benning is 100% likely to be a target. Less likely, Hunter AAF in Savannah and Ft Stewart nearby. Bragg is possible but a longer trip. There's also some bases in Alabama and MS, but I honestly don't know anything about those. The only military installation in the Carolinas that I can recall offhand are Parris Island, SC and Lejeune, NC (both Marines); Parris is reachable (if they can hit Savannah, they can hit Parris) but Lejeune is a ways away.

Patroklos wrote:Splattered inside their AFVs? Yeah, thats not how that works. If you are worried about spalling save it for the Germans who have no such thing as a kevlar lining.

Actually it is how it works. He is not talking about spalling but the concussive forces suffered by the vehicle in question. A large HE shell like say a 88 exploding against a light vehicle will even if it does not penetrate likely kill or at least incapacitate everyone inside simply by shaking them up and tossing them against walls and such. It's basically the same mechanism of murder that prompted the development of vehicles such as the MRAP with it's elevated V floor.

Every modern tank and IFV is already defended against this. If they were not non explosive shells wouldn't exist as they would just do it as you describe.

MRAPS were needed due to the direction of the hit on the Lightly defended and confined bottom of the vehicles. German HE shells do not enjoy advantage against an Abrams glacis plate.

Purple wrote:

Patroklos wrote:Splattered inside their AFVs? Yeah, thats not how that works. If you are worried about spalling save it for the Germans who have no such thing as a kevlar lining.

Actually it is how it works. He is not talking about spalling but the concussive forces suffered by the vehicle in question. A large HE shell like say a 88 exploding against a light vehicle will even if it does not penetrate likely kill or at least incapacitate everyone inside simply by shaking them up and tossing them against walls and such. It's basically the same mechanism of murder that prompted the development of vehicles such as the MRAP with it's elevated V floor.

How light are you thinking when you picture a light vehicle hit by an explosive shell?

Jub wrote:How light are you thinking when you picture a light vehicle hit by an explosive shell?

Something like an IFV. Although most German AT weapons in the 75mm+ range should be capable of penetrating these just fine. Especially in the uber scenario where they would probably get the best possible ammo.

Stas Bush wrote:Because they are a Nazi horde who have the plans to attack a superpower 60 years ahead in the future and they use all they have? Why not use them? How are they going to land 130 000 airplanes? Nobody explained that to me. There's no point for most LW planes to return back. They will not fit no matter if the Germans even appear around Atlanta metro area and capture half of Georgia by the end of the second day or break of the third day. Meanwhile, armed soldiers landing in droves at 300-400 km away from the main forces gives them a nice edge. The total number of trained paratroopers that ever served the Nazis as Fallschirmjäger was 36 000, whereas the Luftwaffe bomber and fighter crews could easily add another 100 000 men. If they jump, the US would have to deal with lightly armed Germans already at the state borders on D1 (and awaiting soon to come reinforcements) - which is preferrable to them not being there, I think.

The OP stipulates half of all "bombers and ground attack" aircraft start airborne, so it's not particularly clear that any Fallschirmjäger would be in their planes and gliders.

Again, though: Even if they were, what would be the point? The Germans have already materialized inside the US borders. It's like inventing a catapult that flings your knights into the enemy's castle, and then setting that catapult up inside the castle's bailey. All you're doing is scattering your elite light infantry formation to the nine winds, killing a bunch of them in the drop, and further scattering their weapons (Fallschirmjäger did not drop with their weapons on their person, but rather in separately-dropped canisters) all over southeast rural America, for no particular gains. It's not like infantry magically become more lethal because they floated down in a parachute or glider; the disorganized infantry combat that occurs on Day 1 isn't going to be caught any more off-guard than it already is just because there's paratroopers falling from the sky (and subsequently being slaughtered because their parachute got caught in a tree and they're 100 meters from their platoon's weapons).

It just doesn't make any operational sense to perform a parachute attack. Maybe gliders, but that has its own problems.

EDIT: If I were commanding the German force, I'd want my Fallschirmjäger on the ground with their heavier non-airborne equipment, at full drop-strength (paratroopers were typically over-strength to compensate for drop losses), formed up and cohesive. Infantry are one of the few areas the German force does not suffer from crippling technological disparity, and I'd rather not waste my best infantry on an ineffectual, pointless attack plan.

Purple wrote:

Jub wrote:How light are you thinking when you picture a light vehicle hit by an explosive shell?

Something like an IFV. Although most German AT weapons in the 75mm+ range should be capable of penetrating these just fine. Especially in the uber scenario where they would probably get the best possible ammo.

They should go through that kind of armor if they can see it. Remember, modern forces can lay down smoke and see through it while the Germans can't do the same back. We also have a massive range advantage and some of our weapons can fire through a hillside when the tank is dug in. So while HE and artillery will have some value, especially before we get spotting planes up to destroy enemy batteries, I doubt they deal enough damage to really change things overall.

Stas Bush wrote:They have too much tanks to feasibly supply with fuel when initial stockpile runs out. That means a massive share of those will be just dead metal, but still dangerous. Even in the uber scenario they cannot feasibly refuel all 67000 KTs and Ferdinands, no matter how much they would like to, right? Gasoline we use now is suitably good for all their tech, as it is high-octane, but there is not enough of it to keep them running even if they capture every gas station in a 300-400 km circle.

Come to that, they have more tanks than they can feasibly drive; as with the aircraft, I'm pretty sure the Germans suffered attrition to their vehicles faster than they suffered attrition to their vehicle crews.

The USAF freedom means more during the first days as the Germans are less spread out, but the more they spread, the less it will mean as 19 million people are a lot (yes, now that I read Zor gave them an extra half a million repair mechanics and the like, they really have a force close to 20 mil.). Some 2000 airplanes cannot feasibly bomb the horde with enough intensity to demoralize it in entierty - only some units that are directly attacked.

Well yes, but those are going to be the same units that are making key attempts to push further out and capture key positions.

Also, note that the Germans will be insanely overconcentrated no matter how far they spread out. 19 million men adds up to ten thousand men per kilometer of front even after you've spread to something like three hundred miles from your starting point (although this discounts men left in reserve in a central location). That's several times what you'd normally expect from divisional frontage. So the bulk of the Wehrmacht is either being held back in depots or garrison duties (reducing the numerical superiority of the German horde at the point of contact), or it is in very very overconcentrated forward positions, that are devilishly hard to supply even with excellent road infrastructure and very inviting targets for cluster (or nuclear) munitions.

And yes, nuclear weapons would definitely be on the table for targeting large units in the open field, targets of a type that the Wehrmacht horde will present in great numbers. Unless the President is an utter idiot.

I made a one zero mistake with 3 000 000, that should have been around 300 000 tons.

Uh... that's probably an overestimate; roughly 3/4 of the total Luftwaffe order of battle are fighters that can carry at best one ton or so of bombs. Or trainers and courier aircraft and such that can't carry any at all.

First days do mean a lot, because the rampaging horde may not be easily slowed down by armoured formations, and for the US losing advanced equipment is a lot more critical than for the horde, which is mostly foot soldiers. If the US runs out of tanks and modern airplanes due to pure attrition because it has to run them every day, the battle will turn into a bloodbath as Germans have 20:1 superiority or even better in all directions.

I suspect the US's mechanized forces will wreak enough havoc on the German mechanized forces that they can't pursue effectively, due to overwhelmingly superior long range antitank firepower from both the tanks and AFVs themselves, and from helicopter support. And at those points of contact, the German foot horde will be a nonissue; they can't get that many men that far that fast, even if the transport is theoretically available.

Sure, they can probably pile a million men into whatever cars in Atlanta will run... but just having a motorized vehicle for every man does not mean a great army can advance effectively at the same speed that car can drive. Even when resistance is at the most sporadic aside from occasional very nasty airstrikes.

[Also, one blown interstate highway bridge could cause a LOT of problems under those circumstances...]

Patroklos wrote:

Simon_Jester wrote:problem is that there aren't really any airbases to speak of south or east of the German positions- at least, none that are comfortably out of the range of "Luftwaffe will blow the hell out of this." So basically, the aircraft will still be taking off from the mid-Atlantic, the Midwest, and the Mississippi river valley, and hitting targets around Atlanta, then flying back to the same bases.

You may want to take another look at Navy and USAF bases in Florida.

Huh. I thought they were all within striking range of Atlanta. I'm wrong? OK. Shuttle bombing it is then!

[Although frankly, shuttle bombing isn't such a great idea when it doesn't result in your getting closer to the target you want to bomb than you would have been anyway...]

Stas Bush wrote:Again why are we assuming any significant number of Luftwaffe personnel will be down for these one way missions? This was NOT a thing at any point in WWII.

Well, realistically, their options are a one-way mission and ditch on American-held soil, or a two-way mission and ditch their planes on (hopefully) German-held soil. That or don't fly at all, in which case they might as well not have even brought their planes along in the first place.

Stas Bush wrote:Helicopters are not a good idea as the Germans field over 150 000 flak guns, and technically can make the territory they control an unassailable fortress for anything slower than 600 kph and lower than strategic bombing altitude. Losing equipment is affordable for the Nazi horde.

That works well for the foot horde and fixed bases, but most of those flak guns are not particularly portable or effective for supporting a mobile advance. The light flak that the Germans do have and can easily deploy in the field is not radar-guided and will not be very effective at shooting down helicopters with a nasty habit of hiding behind a hill five kilometers away and popping up briefly to lob antitank missiles at them.

It'd be suicide to fly helicopters over heavily occupied German territory (they can't get high enough to get out of flak range), but in the open field they're very much a factor.

Ju-287 is the best shot at a heavy jet bomber they had, and given the third prototype could achieve projected characteristics (dropped due to being obsolete by 1947), I am wondering why not give it to them. Arados are good too, but that leaves the Horde with no heavy bomber.

Since frankly the Germans never made heavy bombers a priority in the first place, that really doesn't seem unfair to them.

Needless to remind the Horde also has a Panzerfaust for almost every second infantryman if not for every single one. Driving around in lightly armores vehicles in captured towns is a no-go.

Well, that'd be dangerous anyway. Modern armed forces don't do that.

About the roads: I mentioned shortly that the German armed groups could advance 150 km in two days over essentially swamps, roadless steppes and dirt roads. That is why they are likely to move out over roadless terrain at 30-40 km a day, which means by day three they will spread over a 300 km diameter circle, and the armoured units possibly much further, holding ground at 300 km away. The armoured units will reach these destinations by the middle of the second day, at most the end of it.

The main problem is that the armored units are going to be the focus of actual US counterattacks, so they're the ones that run into resistance, into bridges blown up by cruise missiles ahead and behind them, things like that. Sure, they have maps and can to a large extent bypass a lot of obstacles, but it's going to be problematic.

The heart of the issue here is that frankly, driving up to modern troops in a WWII tank just makes you a bigger target. You don't really have that much more firepower than they can easily call down on you with their superior radios, artillery, and shoulder-fired missiles... and your armor is like tinfoil with respect to their antitank weapons. So the massive advantage of 'tank terror' that the German blitzkrieg relied on just isn't going to happen for them here. They're up against an army that has a lot of equipment specifically designed to fight large swarms of vastly more capable armored vehicles in the Fulda Gap, after all.

Patroklos wrote:Except as I pointed out they were not doing it in anywhere near the concentrations of Barbarossa. And no, the terrain they were encountering was generally flat farmland. 3.1 million personnel for ALL of Barbarossa spread over 1000 miles, we are talking 20 million concetrated in a single city.

Yeah, the Pripyat Marshes and other bad terrain actually did delay the German advance rather seriously. Even if there weren't any (or many) good roads and railways, the terrain itself was pretty favorable to a rapid advance.

Stas Bush wrote:True: many guns were not designed for mobility, the heavier ones I mean. But they will keep Atlanta a dangerous target for anything except stealth and stratobombers.

Well, firing randomly into the air they're going to be very hard pressed to do any real harm, especially since on afterburner and while making use of modern ECM, I suspect that a modern jet fighter can be a nasty enough target that German radar won't be able to meaningfully track it at all, even if it's not a stealth. Random, blind AA fire is still a threat, but it's also a threat the US can manipulate.

For example, by just constantly keeping Predators circling at 35000 feet at all times, so that the Germans waste stupidly massive amounts of ammunition, tiring themselves out and wearing into their supplies...

The light flak guns (around 100 000) were on the other hand quite mobile, some can be towed by the crew even, and sad as this sounds, a good shot from one of them will down a modern helicopter just like an old plane. Germans will hide them in the buildings and every house will become a possible danger. Mobile formations are unlikely to get good flak cover.

Well, it's the mobile (armored) formations that are the main issue here. The big point here is that the armored formations will slam into the bulk of the US's actual military strength, relatively early on, and they are not remotely equipped to deal with a modern military's air-to-ground tank-hunting capability. Or with the fact that it has APCs that can obliterate tanks from several kilometers away and then outrun them repeatedly, or tanks that are just fucking immune to their gunfire and can pot King Tigers all day long until the ammunition runs out.

The concentration is unlikely to be hindering the Horde's forward units (there is no opposition to speak of, so you can move by just walking and shooting whoever dares to look bad your way), and we know they need to keep reserves behind in Atlanta too, though not too much. For the first days probably prudent to keep them in the city so that the US knows it has to kill hundreds of thousands of civilians if it wants to bomb the heart of the Horde.

The infantry horde is another matter- but they spread much more slowly, and to get anywhere they have to move in very large, formed units through open country. Where the cluster bombs (and tactical nuclear weapons) are very much in play.

Stas Bush wrote:Siege an army of over 17 million? Unlikely. More likely it will be the Germans laying siege to bigger towns around, then plundering them when they fall. The US does not have the manpower to stop the initial advance of such a massive army...

Yes, but it has the firepower to cause staggering, apocalyptic casualties to such a massive army as it advances on foot. A better target for nuclear attack cannot be imagined, because you're literally talking about hundreds of thousands of men, on the move, in open country between major cities. Sure, there'd be some civilian casualties, but the ratio of civilian deaths to Wehrmacht deaths would be very favorable.

US Army and USAF have too small an inventory of aircraft to efficiently attack the horde during the first hours, and maybe even for days. I mean, a few fighters and bombers _can_ realistically kill all the Germans in a short 'nough time... By nuking the Atlanta area wholesale with all inside.

If that horde stays in Atlanta it will very likely not get nuked. If a significant fraction of it tries to leave, it is begging to be nuked.

And frankly, after a few mushroom clouds go off, I suspect the Wehrmacht rank and file will just give up; they're not insane and they can't defend against that.

That is unless they get nuked or chemmed

If millions of foot soldiers start pouring out of Atlanta in great columns across the woods and hills of Georgia, threatening to pillage more population centers, they will almost certainly be hit with nuclear weapons.

Stas Bush wrote:I am not mentioning that the 'siege' is going to die after hit by German artillery.

The only way to win is to strike from the air, but that is not a siege. On the ground Germans win; in the air they lose, and if planes manage to blow up their munitions carriers, heavy casualties are likely. However, if Atlanta is spared and turned into a massive ammo dump, the US will have a hard choice between killing its own citizens and leaving Germans without artillery munitions, or letting them live and thereby prolonging the agony.

This wouldn't be so much a siege as an encirclement- the US forces form a ring around the German pocket at a distance. Any German offensive gets squashed from the air, probably with atomic weapons, definitely with total paralyzation of the logistics routes behind it. No shipment of food is permitted in or out. Since realistically the population inside the pocket is like 50-70% German soldiers by numbers, it would be insanity to even try to ship food in anyway.

Yes, a lot of Georgians starve as a result of this... but honestly that's unavoidable because even if the normal amount of food was shipped into the state out of the kindness of the US's heart, it still wouldn't be remotely enough and the Wehrmacht would just eat it all themselves.

If it is not spared, the US can just nuke the place. That will be the end of it and the biggest genocide in modern history.

There is unlikely to be a need; the bulk of the German rank and file will most likely not support a 'fight to the death' scenario when they have reason to think surrender is possible and defeat is certain.

Why would we bother with nukes? FAEs and Napalm would be enough to tear through the ranks of German foot troops wholesale.

Brother-Captain Gaius wrote:Again, though: Even if they were, what would be the point? The Germans have already materialized inside the US borders. It's like inventing a catapult that flings your knights into the enemy's castle, and then setting that catapult up inside the castle's bailey. All you're doing is scattering your elite light infantry formation to the nine winds, killing a bunch of them in the drop, and further scattering their weapons (Fallschirmjäger did not drop with their weapons on their person, but rather in separately-dropped canisters) all over southeast rural America, for no particular gains.

The gains are simple: dispersal and capture of territory. There is no reason to stay in one place for too long, and the faster the Germans spread around, the greater is the problem. The speed of movement of ordinary mechanized formations cannot be fast enough to have them deployed there. Once again, just think about the fact that even if all pilots of the airborne planes jump, there will be over 100 000 soldiers - lightly armed, but still - far away from the center of the German appearance. That will distract and tie up the enemy.

Brother-Captain Gaius wrote:EDIT: If I were commanding the German force, I'd want my Fallschirmjäger on the ground with their heavier non-airborne equipment, at full drop-strength (paratroopers were typically over-strength to compensate for drop losses), formed up and cohesive. Infantry are one of the few areas the German force does not suffer from crippling technological disparity, and I'd rather not waste my best infantry on an ineffectual, pointless attack plan.

Except you have 18 000 000 troops on the ground, and they can only advance so far on foot. What is the point?

Simon_Jester wrote:Come to that, they have more tanks than they can feasibly drive; as with the aircraft, I'm pretty sure the Germans suffered attrition to their vehicles faster than they suffered attrition to their vehicle crews.

I am sure they have enough to drive the tanks - every tenth person in the Wehrmacht was a driver, so you are looking at around two milllion drivers to man their equipment. They have the manpower to raise in the air half of what they had (and certainly enough to man the airborne 18700 bombers/FBs). Like I said, if they appear on the ground that just gives them more territory from the very start as there's no way to fit all the machines on the airfields just in the city alone.

Simon_Jester wrote:And yes, nuclear weapons would definitely be on the table for targeting large units in the open field, targets of a type that the Wehrmacht horde will present in great numbers. Unless the President is an utter idiot.

Fallout will hit nearby cities, though. And of course, the road network in the US is a lot more dense than anything ever met by the Germans before, just as the urban zones are pretty dense too.

Simon_Jester wrote:Uh... that's probably an overestimate

It is not: that is the volume of bombs that the US can drop on the Germans if they raise all their bombers.

From a cursory look it seems Metro Atlanta has enough housing units to keep many Germans inside, in squads of five or four per house. They can literally hold the 6 million hostage, and the ratio of 'enemy to civilian' casualties will not be all that good.

Driving a car isn't like driving a tank. Drive a tank like a car, and you'll throw a track, and then you're stuck. Fallout isn't a significant issue with airbursts, and the massive army of foot soldiers is perfect targets for airbursts.

On another note: the OP specified they have maps of the US... that doesn't mean they actually know whats at which bases. So the bombers that start in flight don't know which stuff is actually useful to hit right off, and which are merely painful for the US military. For example, Keesler AFB in MS is a tech school base. It's job is to train people... but if you took it out, they could reconstitute the training squadrons at different bases. The USAF would lose the reserve wing there, but it's all C-130s. Somewhat painful, but wouldn't affect the US air superiority. As such, I don't believe the Wehrmacht would spend the resources to go paste bases near the edge of a one-way range, instead of more heavily destroying bases nearby.

German drivers were not all tanksmen, but most went through training on tracked APCs. I am sure that works good enough.

Fallout is still an issue even if you use only airbursts, and considering that Germans hold Metro Atlanta hostage if you are willing to nuke the state, you might as well just nuke it with the inhabitans.

The OP specified them being enroute to US bases nearby, not enroute to nowhere, so I assume installations in Georgia are going to be bombed (they also have over 5000 V2 rockets and even with abysmal targeting these can destroy a fair share of installations in mere minutes, all inside a radius of 300 km from the launch point).

I also think that they cannot or will not target bases which are too far to be meaningfully assaulted.

And as to food supplies, isn't Savannah essentially one of the busiest ports in the US with massive cold storage facilities and lots of food EXIM cargo passing through on a daily basis? There are also Walmart storage centers and maybe some US governmenr stockpiles (the location thereof is unknown to me, so not sure if any are in Georgia).

Finally, the Germans will have several thousand BR50-driven steam trains to quickly reach towns on the railway network even during day one, and around 70-100 armoured trains, which can be a rather nasty surprise as they can move thousands of troops out 100 km away and beyond, and an armored train parked in a railway station of a small town is nothing nice - the cities will be captured before people realize what is going on and even if the train is bombed later, the initial spreadout can still happen with enough speed.

If this happens on April 1st, is it possible for the Germans to get an extra half day before the US starts reacting?

How effective can the Germans stall the US offensive with using the Georgians as hostages?

Since we're talking about America using nukes, I'm going to question weather the US would be willing to launch nuclear strikes on its own soil unless it was losing using only non-nuclear means.

I also have to point out that their is bound to be a political backlash from nuking American soil, although that might be cancelled out by the shrieking of the idiotic Right wing warmonger lot demanding nukes be used and the pressure the President would be under to not appear weak/indecisive.

I am not sure the US will not mistakenly start a nuclear war with Russia when suddenly military installations in Georgia are hit by over 5000 ballistic missiles out of the blue. And 25 000 cruise missiles, too.