Lightning Tournament Rd. 1: Lucky1 V. Xianing UV 2.1

[Lucky1]

o.k. For giggles, I attempted to recreate our scenario circa winter 1940. With a key difference -- tac air is present. Fairly significant difference indeed. I also did the scenario by placing two additional troops in Belgium. Again, signficiant difference. With tac air absent and two fewer infantry in W. Berlin and with the purchase of five militia (as I had done in the game), the best odds I could get for W. Allies (with 30+ units in E. France) was 9% victory. So, I would attribute my dismal showing so far, well, to me!!!

[xianing]

Well, when I saw this picture I thought the game would finish much earlier this time. Because Lucky1 had put 0 supply in TLC and it can be easily isolated from sea and air when West Germany falls. But with 79% chance WA lose the battle, just if that tank shot a milita instead of an AA, whole thing will change. Another side, Germany navy is badly damaged near their homeland.

So the result is France will surely fall next turn, and UN will suffer a bad damage of transport chain if Italy declares war immediately. Let's see how these important damages to both sides will influence the next part of the game.

[MrQuiet]

I'm not for sure but I dont think the projected odds calculator takes free militia into consideration.
So you might want to keep that info in the back of your mind.
 
I still think that is a lot of armor for France 1940 in a grand strat game.
 

[christian brown]

ORIGINAL: Lucky1

Why aren't you in the tourney?

I have a MAC and it doesn't support AWD : (

ORIGINAL: MrQuiet

I'm not for sure but I dont think the projected odds calculator takes free militia into consideration.
So you might want to keep that info in the back of your mind.

To be honest, I'm not sure either.................Brian, what gives?

[Lucky1]

With German sympathizers providing faulty intelligence and combat analysis, the daring French blitz across the Siegfried line is stopped cold by Volksturm who take heavy casualties (if it is any consolation, Ning, I didn't know about the odds calculator glitch either... am learing many lessons during this AAR!). This respite allows German troops in Belgium to complete the Kessel, cutting off a huge portion of allied troops. France falls. Hitler states that all went according to plan (those doubting keep their counsel), and unbeknowst to him, a plot for a coup (put in place following the Belgium debacle) is put into abeyyance. The Wermacht and Luftwaffe learned some hard lessons about operational coordination and Goering promises to never have a division tac bombers away from the front again -- or you can call him Meyer!

Italy, sensing that her enemies are all but vanquished declares war and launches an attack on allied shipping in the Med. She is too slow, and fails to capture the French Med fleet before it is scuttled. Ciano presses the English to accept the new Face of Europe rather than continue in senseless bloodshed.

In the Pacific, a Japanese air raids finally achieves intended results; Chinese industry in Chungking is badly damaged.

[Lucky1]

...to continue. A pic of the new europe:

[Lucky1]

still learning about this aar stuff... Picture did not embed..

[Lucky1]

And the butcher's bill:



Comments:
I am not sure who came off worse in this exchange. England and France were bloodied (in terms of kills), but Germany lost almost two turns of production. I can't say with 100% accuracy, but I would speculate that WA production was also dedicated to holding France. So, the big winners are perhaps Russia and Japan. I learned a hard lesson about Combined Arms Bonuses and would extract the following if France mounts a determined defence: Germany must invade Belgium in force in W1940 being sure to protect against CAM (is the acronym correct?) at all costs!

Turn sent back to Ning.

[xianing]

ORIGINAL: MrQuiet

I'm not for sure but I dont think the projected odds calculator takes free militia into consideration.
So you might want to keep that info in the back of your mind.

I still think that is a lot of armor for France 1940 in a grand strat game.

I'm quite sure that it counts +5 mils. I've seen several times when attacking a German land protected by nothing, the successful chance is not 100%. And we can see in this battle Germany has only 2inf+3mil+6ary, I have 3tank+7inf+5mil+13ary+CAB, the win chance would be surely near 100% if free militias are not counted.

So now UN must accept the bad result of gambling. The commander of that battle is demoted and sent to North Africa as a ordinary soldier. 40 summer UN lose 3 transports in the Med and 1 in NA. just some deployment and thinking how to stop Germany from invading England. Some ASW but result was null. I also put the Vichy battle in this SC.

Stalin was just happy because the Barba is still far away and he would soon have the strongest army in the world.

[Lebatron]

I'm certain the odds calculator takes into account popup militia. The reason for xianing's near success (79%) was that the bulk of Western Germany's defense was based on militia. 5 popup plus the 5 Lucky1 built. Take a close look at the odds calculator. Projected defender losses were expected to be 13.32 hits. It's so high because it's not hard to hit 10 militia with an 18 or better. 15 base +3 for fortress. I wasn't going to say anything earlier about the high risk in Western Germany because that's inapropriate, but now that xianing did try to exploit it I can freely comment that Lucky1 should have relied more on inf and arty for defense. Well in any case, Lucky got lucky.

In xianing's Spr40 account he says he will suffer bad damage to his transport chain in the Med if Italy joins right away. Apparently it did, but screen shots showed no UN transports in the Med?? Why were they there? Malta does not look like its been reinforced, and the Eastern Med fleet has been evacuated before any clear threat was present, so on the surface it looks like the Italians had no targets of opportunity. 

[xianing]

As the transport capacity in Atlantic is not enough (even new transportation rule give port bouns, but the real capacity is always limited by the smallest transportation points in the chain), I used Med to send supplies from USA to France, hoping that Italy wouldn't join immediately so I could evacuate but it did.
 

[Lucky1]

I just got Ning's move, and will attempt to do my turn later this morning. However, I was probably too parsimonious in my AAR posting. When Italy joined, she destroyed three WA transports in the Med and took Malta. And if the odds calculator was accurate, than I got lucky indeed. Truth be told, I could not have put any more troops in Germany if I had any chance of holding Belgium. After the devastating mistake of allowing CAM against Belgium in the opener, I did have not any options. I either ceded Belgium, or pressed my luck. In either circumstance, I saw very little opportunity for Germany to recover (so why not press my luck). I did not wish to return to W. Germany, as this would give France and England to resupply / replenish their troops (however, this would have been the safest option to regroup and redo Belgium in Fall or Winter). In any event, I gambled that it would be difficult for Ning to get enough supply to make a full attack (I interrupted supply lines from India and North America as best I could). But Lucky was my last name, as it were..... Anyhow, here we are! Will get my turn out ASAP after taking kids to preschool....

[Lucky1]

ok. relatively eventful turn for Axis. To start, Ning had placed a transport and submarine off Scotland. Am not sure why he (I presume) did this. If his intent was to draw air attacks (fruitless, I might add), he succeeded. Twice. Out of principle, I sent my lone destroyer formation to destroy the resilient transport. To my surprise I destroyed it and somehow managed to damage the sub. Two hits from one unit... Grateful if someone could enlighten me on how that might happen. Unfortunately, I didn't think to capture the combat screen (which I generally do not understand anyhow).... In other naval battles, German subs scored minor victories on a number of allied transports and returned to port (Except one) to resupply. Germany achieves an equivocal result in the first air war of the battle of Britain. Had I used the additional bombers wasted on the sub and transport, I might have done somewhat better....

Germany transfers troops to the med. England has her fleet lurking in the Suez. Nazi intelligence reviews press clippings from the US and notes that Soviet spies have been heavily engaging in espionage in America. Perhaps Germany will follow suit....

Noting the transfer of air defence to the last factory in easy range of her air, Japan launches an air attack and damages the factor. Now all Chinese factories but the Westernmost are double-damaged. Spoiling attack is also performed on Changsha to dampen any Chinese offensive capacity. Two more inf. units get silver stars. Generally pleasing results for the Emperor. Debates are heated in Cabinet, as hawks advocate a strike against England while she is weak and occupied with Germany. Cooler heads prevail for the moment, as Japan is clearly not ready....

[xianing]

40 Fall, UK did nothing but redeployment (top classified so not showed here). As Germany has gathered a big army in North Africa, WA troops are ordered withdraw to Cairo. Italy has 4 transport and Germany has 6, that shows Axis want to put pressure on both sides. But the coming winter greatly helps the defence of England so Churchill has got some time to drink a cup of tea.
Notice that Germany has built an airborn, that threats Scotland because with the new mod (also GG3.0), Germany is able to launch a airborn attack across England.

Russia countinue the technology sharement program with Western Allies and China, in the same time Stalin begin to send men into Eastern Poland and hope that will stimulate the poor economy (still x1 this turn). Yugoslavia is still balanced.

[Lebatron]

ORIGINAL: xianing

40 Fall, UK did nothing but redeployment (top classified so not showed here).

When you use view mod enter as a neutral nation. That is enter no password and you will be taken to a view that would not show any hidden units in fog.


Odd that Yugo is still balanced. Even at 75% starting in 1940.

[Lucky1]

Winter 41

Too bad can't amphib in winter..... Anyhow, in German turn, I took out four or five WA transports with bombers and submarines and redeployed some troops. Yugo was invaded (at the time of writing, I am pretty sure that they had coup, but I might be mixing up with another game....). Anyhow, Hungary and Romania join the Axis and request their share of territory from their newly conquered neighbour. Greece sends diplomatic protests... Russian peasants are forcibly redeployed to factories.

Anyhow, as my opponent noticed (darn), I do have two paratroops and six transports off England. I also have have four strat bombers and three fighters in France. Fighters in WF and England are roughly equal, although German fighters are technologically superior. Ning has moved much of his fleet off Gibraltar and has another good portion in the Suez. I suspect that he is aiming a hammer blow on the Italians in Central Med, but have left my fleets there nonethelles. Ning is running rather low on transports and even though he has a lot of supply (90+), he may have a tough time getting out of the med if he chooses to make his stand there, especially since Cairo will almost certainly fall unless heavily reinforced.... From what I can tell, he has invested nil in ASW thus far. Certainly, if he does strike in the Med, he may not be able to get any fleet to the North Sea to fend off the Tirpitz and Scharnhorst.... Dilemmas!

English sub off Crete is a tough little fellow; I could not hit him with 90% chance!

From my point of view, WA have three choices: redeploy to UK to ensure survival of England at the cost of the mid-East. Strike in the Med and reinforce the Mid-East in a hope to keep it at the risk of the UK. Or, strike a balance and try their luck in Cairo and/or UK. Interesting developments.

In the Orient, Japan practices her shooting and another CAG earns some medals. Troops are redeployed somewhat. More cabinet deliberations.

US and Russia are still far from entering the war at this point (23 max WR and 17 max WR, respectively), so Axis still has some time on her hands.

[xianing]

41 Winter, Hilter received two news, the good news is Cairo is evacuated and Rommel will get the control of Suez soon. And the bad one is their supplies line are cut off form Med.

As Italy hasn't protected its fleets with air power, Allies gethered all it has and drove Italien fleets back to port, just before Cairo falls.
I think now Suez is no more strategy value for Germany because the most important goal of taking Suez is to protect the Italien Med fleets. Now Germany has just left some tanks there without supplies and waiting to be destroyed later.

In the same time, England is well prepared for the spring. 5 Fighters is already there and a new tank is just out of Factory. Germany maybe will need to change its plan.

[Lucky1]

Interesting turns to come! Axis troops take Cairo, although they are for the moment cut off from Naval supply routes. But, there are other ways for Germany to link to the Mid-East.... However, the preponderence of the Royal Navy is floating off Italy, with no supplies to be found for a thousand km. Axis dive bombers take a few pot shots, destroying one destroyer and damaging another. More of this to follow in coming months. Meanwhile the air and submarines destroy a few more transports. Allies have had 12 transport casualties and 13 transports killed. They are definitely running short....

New fighter designs are moved to Western France where Germany will now enjoy a qualitative and numeric advantage in the air war that will surely follow.....

In the Orient, Japan manages to damage China's factory in Sinkiang at the cost of a damaged bomber. Now China has no operational factories and 1 supply.... Spoiling (training) attacks are conducted in Northern China. Six chinese kills, I am not sure whether the experience gained by the troops was worth the supply expenditure. I have been fortunate enough in other offensives, so I won't compain.

Observation on turn(s) past. But for the low number of transports available to Italy and the low amphib capability, I could have sealed the Suez much earlier (Winter 41) - WA had advanced into Egypt and had left Cairo unoccupied. Italy was on her second turn as Axis (only two transports) and I attempted to amphib troops from Tobruk (?the territory west of Egypt) to Cairo. Doh! Amphib levels 3!!!! No can do!!! In this mod, Italian capacity to do amphib is basically non-existent (except Malta) for the first year she is at war. Probably realistic, but a VERY significant departure from other mods. Not necessarily a critique, but simply an observation....

[xianing]

Allies 41 spring turn
As Lucky1 has heavily investigated in fighter techs and numbers so now I have to pull back all my airs to Scotland (Germany fighters still have range 1). But in contrast, Allies infs and artys are superior than Axis so I think England in safety now, and North Africa situation will change soon.
Russia has much more troops than Germany, I think Germany is unable to launch Barbarossa now so I keep increasing garrisons in Eastern Poland to precipite the DOW.

[Lucky1]

o.k. Some excitement this turn.

FINALLY, an amphib attack.

Germany takes Norway (ha), as it is pretty much impossible to mount a credible invasion of England as things currently stand.... Raeder advises Hitler that it is VERY difficult to develop meaningful amphib invasion capacity. (With four troop transport fleets, Axis can deliver one inf division to Scotland or two to England at tech level three. With total of ten transports (six Germany and four Italy), I was only able to reach tech level 4 this turn (eight turns of development). Maybe the port bonus from Norway will help!)

In other action, the Axis damaged / destroyed four more transports and damaged two allied destroyers. In a fit of pique, Goering ordered an air raid on London with 8 fighter and two strategic bomber squadrons, but with 5 anti aircraft targeting the sky, terror was the only result....

The Reich watches with unease at number of Soviet artillery etc. (Luckily, Germany is developing super-weapons that will nullify the threat of the massing cossack horde.) Molotov assures Ribbentrop that these are only training exercises.

Japan redeploys troops yet again.... What is the emperor planning? Air raids are conducted on Chinese mines to hone bombing skills.

Screen shot of orient....