Solitaire game starting late '42

[EUBanana]

I guess the Finnish army is destined to be forever used in a siege then. [:D]

[cfinch]

i believe they called it border defense and is likely why they remained a country unto themselves post war

[EUBanana]

Well the Axis lose a MECH o shatter an INF near Leningrad, not exactly a good exchange.

Aside from that the line is straightened up a bit in Europe.

In China, the Japanese reorganise their rather pitiful defence as much as it allows, railing a unit out of Manchuria.

I guess Japan should've stepped on China a lot harder in the early game...

[EUBanana]

Impulse #8

US takes a combined, the rest land.

US sends Catalina/P51D to the Marianas to try and clear out that transport. however, on a 9, they do not find it.

Four heavy bombers strategic bomb Germany to try and return to the UK - two are shot down, for 1 German FTR. Flying over the Reich is dangerous these dasys. No bomb hits because Allied luck on strat bombing is awful.

I think the Chinese airforce is finally better than the Japanese one too, at least the Japanese one as deployed in China.

[EUBanana]

Fair bit of ground combat from the Allies... the Commonwealth captures Turin without a fight. As Kwajalein isn't cut off, the US decides to continue in France instead.

Vague sense of Axis collapse, I must admit....

I missed a couple, and they were important. Manstein got caught and destroyed just outside Kursk, and in the south, Russian armour manages a breakthrough over the DNieper by Rostov.

[EUBanana]

And on a 2, the May/June turn ends, leaving the Axis EXTREMELY battered.

[EUBanana]

Ruh roh

[EUBanana]

Even in China it's looking pretty bleak... as the Japanese lost their HQ.

[EUBanana]

The turn ending so abruptly kinda throws the Allies off a bit, there's naval actions they wanted to take. But it's not so bad. No egregious errors, like leaving France out of supply...

Germany scraps a 3-1 GARR, a 5-3 INF, and a Bf109F-1.

Germany has 41 points
5 MIL
2 pilot
2 FTR-3
1 FTR-2
1 antitank
2 INF
Manstein again
1 SUB construction

Japan has 18
Umezu
2 INF
2 pilots
CVA-0
CVA-1
FTR-2

China has 6
2 pilot
FTR-2

Commonwealth has 35
2 ENG
ARM
2 pilot
2 FTR-2
Offensive

US has 61
3 TRN
4 pilot
2 FTR-2
2 FTR-3
MECH-div
ARM-div
2 offensives

Soviet Union has 36
1 MECH
2 INF div
3 pilot
2 LND-2
Offensive

Germany destroys the factories at Kursk and Rouen.

Japan gets a couple of Franks and an ARM on the board this turn... high hopes that these will give China a good swatting.

US gets two more Essexes. Planes arrive for them too, it's almost like there's some vague organisation going on here.

Germany by far had the most reinforcements, lots of MILs, shattered armour returning, a lot of quality fighters. the Soviets had just a couple of INF this turn by way of comparison...

Axis have the initiative which is good, means they can set up some defensive lines. Jul/Aug 1944 about to begin...

[EUBanana]

Everybody land bar Italy, who takes a combined.

The Italian fleet - now down to BB Roma and CA Zara - sortie to the Italian coast, which currently has just a CP on the 0 box and some cruisers escorting. The CW puts a Harrow in the 0 box just in case, but there's no combat.

Germany tries some bombing - despite fairly even odds I think, it's pretty much a disaster for them.

As Germany has focused more on fighters for a while though now they probably have pretty much at least parity everywhere now, at least for FTR-2s.

[EUBanana]

France actually gets the lions share of reinforcement... that's a lot of fighters especially.

But then France is small so there's only a few hexes to war over.

[EUBanana]

On the other side of the world, Japan strips Manchuria to the bone to form some defences around Peking. Hata evacuates Wuhan having been told he's now commanding the defence...

[EUBanana]

On the plus side (for the Axis) the Alps looks completely impassable with those MNTs in the mountain passes.

On the other hand the situation in Greece is developing... and Vichy France nervously arranges it's troops on its border properly.

And the Yugoslav partisans have become a full on army of their own. There's no way the occupying forces can deal with them in the mountains.

[EUBanana]

And the eastern front is thin indeed. Kesselring is in a bit of a bind for sure, a blitz at the end of the last turn, and a perfectly timed 'end of turn', left him swinging in the wind.

[EUBanana]

Impulse #2.

US goes for a Supercombined, CW a naval, USSR an Air (to use their huge airforce to reduce the strongpoints on that thin line), China a land.

The CW mostly does whaty ou might expect - convoy duty, fleet in the North Sea, fleet in the Italian Coast. 2 subs to South China Sea. MAR + TRN arrives at Calcutta. MOT-div and CAV-div arrives at Bombay all the way from the UK thanks to t he now considerable Allied transport network.

The US fleet is only slightly more interesting. They want to rebase to Rabaul so they have to be out, and they are mostly in the Marshalls simply because they can't really be anywhere else productive, at least in the Marshalls they can attack Kwajalein. It's less relevant now given Rabaul is better but it's still a nice to have. Also Bunker Hill and Yorktown 2 arrive at Pearl. Also BB North Carolina and some cruisers go to the Solomons to make sure it's cut off from all sides.
MacArthur and an INF-div arrives at Port Moresby, so we got him, Nimitz at Rabaul, and Hodges at Honolulu atm. A single convoy point is fed into the Marianas to try and supply Iwo Jima.

The sub campaign is really starting in earnest now. 3 US subs in the Sea of Japan have a look, find nothing. 2 CW and 1 US sub in the South China Sea have a look - are found by the escorting naval air, which damages the US sub.

[EUBanana]

In the Marianas a US submarine and LBA from Eniwetok duel with LBA from the many Japanese islands covering this sea zone.

The US wins that little duel though. Kwajalein cut off.

[EUBanana]

Some strategic bombing, Berlin, Prague, Nuremberg, Lille. Lille and Nuremberg are defended, the raid on Lille is escorted as well though. Matters nothing, lucky rolls mean two dead bombers. While the Allies roll a 2 on both strategic bombing rolls and achieve nothing as per usual. The survivors return all over, northern Italy, Greece, the UK.

[EUBanana]

And a LOT of groudn attacks and air to air combat.

These are just the bombers that got through and hit.

The only results from the tactical bombing in the air were aborts, so it was quite bloodless in the air.

[EUBanana]

There's a fairly brutal air battle over Occupied France as the US armour pushes eastwards and runs into crack German panzer troops... and an equally crack Luftwaffe, there's some fight being up alright.

[EUBanana]

In the end the Allies do manage to push forward a bit. But are disrupted a bit. Kwajalein's guys don't matter as there's only one attack per naval turn after all, but France isn't going to instantly collapse it seems.