Beaten down by crushing defeats against the unstoppable Crystal Empire, Equestria's battered military is in full retreat. A few desperate soldiers are building defenses in the Alicorn Mountains to the east, but they are only delaying the inevitable. All is lost.
But if war proves anything, it's that things never go quite as expected...
Meanwhile, in a far-away realm called Earth, a far different war rages on. Blazing his way across North Africa in a series of brilliant military victories, German feldmarschall Erwin Rommel has earned the nickname Desert Fox for his tactical genius. When he finds himself in the world of Equestria, will he be doomed to die far from his Vaterland? Or will his quick thinking and brilliant tactics be enough to turn the tides of war and save Canterlot?
Find out in Panzerlost!
Allow me to be the first to say...
"Rommel...You Magnificent Bastard, I READ YOUR BOOK!"
Me thinks this has potential. I shall track it!
8673684
Damn, you beat me to it! D:
8673689
Sorry mate.
No hard feelings.
tail
I recognize a highly logical mind.
8673689
Thank you :)
8673849
Thanks. It was a lot of fun trying to describe Equestria from the point of view of a human randomly whisked there with no previous knowledge.
oh shit, this good, funny thing is I'm writing a story of a militia of troops after nuclear war. also, low key have Rommel change the uniforms and weapons they use
8673965
Very interesting how the warfare in equestria and war will come to with the mind of Erwin Rommel.
Interesting, you got my attention. Rommel was a Good man and caring Officer. A soldier everyone should respect.
Please research Rommel properly if you're going to do this...
8674742
I agree. I hope a new chapter comes out soon! I am desperate to read more
8674887
Me too.
8674791
Have no worries! Rommel is my favorite general, and you can be sure I'll do my very best to portray him with the intelligence and honor he deserves.
8674742
8674887
8674891
Thank you all! I never expected this story to gain so much support so quickly!
8675025
so do you study military history and strategy or the cinematical world of war.
8675025
Your Welcome.
Hmmm...Nice, nice...Very Nice I'll give it a like for now and a follow
Great Job with the qoute,with him at their side, victory will be Close at hand
I hope you will continiu this, i like it a lot.
But if you work with Rommel, plz do your research:
JANUARY 25TH, 1942 Rommel is Generaloberst,
22.6.1942 Promotion Generalfeldmarschall NS-Propaganda, 22.6.1942 Deutsches Rundfunkarchiv
Feldmarshal = Generalfeldmarschall (should be Generaloberst because time)
Oberlutenant Gerhard = Oberleutnant ( Oberst Gerhard Müller, he was commander 5th Panzer Regiment in africa,
Ober Carl-Heinz= Oberst Karl-Heinz
Ober Hasso= Oberst Hasso
"Ja'vohl, herr feldmarshal!"= "Jawohl, Herr Feldmarschall"
at 22. August 1942 Romel was reportet sick. If you adjust your story a few month later and let Romel disapear during the first battle of El Alamein (1. bis 31. Juli 1942) history would work in your favor. Romel is Feldmarschall, if he disapeared during the battel, he was not there to win. To cover up thad he vanished the Wehrmacht tells the world he is sick and sends a replacement.
just do your thing and have fun
Or you can ignore the crasy german and his long text.
8675202
I beg your forgiveness! I am utterly without excuse. I promise I will do my best to avoid such errors in the future.
The officers weren't meant to be the actual officers, but were actually cameos of characters from the books that inspired me to write this. Müller and Carl-Heinz are from the alternate history novel Fox on the Rhine. Hasso is from the Harry Turtledove novel After the Downfall. I hope you will forgive me my tip of the hat.
The date and site of the battle were picked at random from one of my many books about Rommel. It was clearly mistaken.
The promotion to Feldmarchal... I have no excuse there. It is a straight-up error on my part.
Thank you so much for taking the time to comment. I really appreciate it, and as soon as I have time, I will fix the mistakes. :)
8675253
you are forgiven !
nothing bad happend, but my famely has a history with rommel and the DAK, so i had to point this out in the typical german direkt way. investet 2h into the research to make shure everything is corekt. i like the 2nd. chapter, plz go on.
Ob strumt oder shnite~!
If I don’t get panzerlied at some point in this story I will be disappointed.
we exclaimed both. Yeah , if you have mobile forces, focal points (late term, never used in that time) and maneur warfare are of choice. Though blietzkrieg concept as a whole is not very workable in defense, isn't it?
By the way, Equestria had flying chariots in show. That would be equivalent of bombers or airborne cavalry.
While I agree with usage of german and era specific terms - reich rank names, miltary terms like this one - I consider ill-advised to use common-place words like ja, jawohl, etc. in english text just for sake of it to sound... german. It confuses reader unless they have a polyglottic tilt and doesn't makes sense much: had translation spell fail on word for "yes"?
There is quite a number essays written on this topic of writing in one language while hinting that character actually speaks different one.
8675202
Unless this instance of Rommel is like Navarone-Anon, a clone of original.
8677238
I'm sorry. I guess I've just read so many books about Germans I'm just used to using occasional German words.
I'm doing my best to do this as well as possible, but... frankly it's quite daunting. Rommel is just so much smarter and more noble than me, it's hard to get into his head so to speak. But I promise I'll do the very best that I can. Thank you for your comment :)
8680039
High-five! Maybe be giving him more or less "old-time" eloquent speech. He hails from south of Germany, where speech was more archaic at that moment, if 'm not mistaken.
Nice work! Hope can be a great weapon as mercy can be. Hate to say it but Opel with P, not B. That uniform Rarity made, I can imagine how good it must looks like. And I agree with Rommel, a officer should led his men personally when possible, as moral is one of the important the keys to victory. Sure, it's a big risk, but with the right tactic, this can be avoided.
8683423
Ah! Thanks for the correction.
8683594
You're welcome!
more please
This story is one of the best I've ever read!
8689120
Thank you! :D
You're welcome!
Nice Work! Rarity's designer Work Never fails to impress. While it's understandable to compare spitfire's Refusal with the Waffen SS, its a different thing. And jawohl with w not v.
I would like to ask why havent Rommel asked is there is a way to get him back to Germany, he has wife and a son l think he would like to see them again. And another thing why he tells tactics to a civilian there is a risk that enemy will hear if he tells that to everyone he meets. Hell even some times soldiers dont know about mission or plans or even tactics until when operation begins then there is a low change that enemy will hear about it. Smart enemy has as many spies to look army build up, movement or logisctical routs. I would be surprised if enemy dosent know about Rommel already.
8720238
*facehoof*
Dang it. I just cant' spell it right, can I? Thanks for the correction again :P
8720909
Rommel misses his family very much. I have a long scene written about it, but so far I just haven't found the right spot to insert it into the story without it seeming forced.
What does King Sombra know about Rommel? Well, I like to limit this to Rommel's point of view, so we'll just have to wait and see...
8721438
I couldn't have said it better myself. Those are precisely my thoughts. Thank you so much for your encouragement!
8721976
Your Welcome. Not want to annoy, just to be helpful
8721976
I wonder,will some units from the afrika korps be transported into equestria in future chapters? If so how many units
Don't worry about it. Life happens, as does writers block and other things. Don't let it get you down.
Great story so far.
May God go with you
8714862 Indeed, this immediately activated my "EHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH?!" siren.
But of course, there is only so much a human can do with tactics when faced with a world completely different from his own, where warfare technology is primitive and magic, mythical beasts and gods are real.
*poke with a stick* anyone home?
8677238
On the note of bitzkrieg’s lack of defensive ability I would say you’re only half right. bitzkrieg might not be good for holding ground you already have but if you want to counter an enemy advance (exactly like this situation) it’s an excellent choice. Just look at the battle of the bulge while the operation failed that was more due to Germany not being able to support such an ambitious plan rather than a major tactic flaws and even so it still caught allied command off guard
10681233
They didn't had technical ability to follow the plan which wasn't possible to predict fully. Just like with Battle of Moscow, weather threw a wrench into the war machine. A plan inadequate to abilies is a flawed plan, tactics is science of using what you have in most optimal way possible, but in their case they had three enemies: time, weather and Alliance.
Technically Ardenne operation was a counteroffensive. Blietzkrieg is an agressive offensive based on concept of denying opponent to use defense in depth or lack of such. There are similarities, but different implementation. It was called Blitzkrieg plan because it was Hitler's brainchild.
It concept was based on fact that area had existing defenses and region acted as a natural "castling" environment. For similar reasons some german detachments were able to hold their ground until September 1945 in southeast.
This dead?
So uh whens the next update? :)