Solitaire game starting late '42

[EUBanana]

And finally all the US aircraft move up. The medium bombers in Italy, mostly unused, all relocate to France. Places like Trieste and the Alps seem a bit hard, to put it mildly, to get over. Better to push in France.

And in the Pacific there's a general moving forward of air units the the various islands. Right now the US is looking at

Wake Island - B29
Eniwetok - P51D + Catalina
Kwajalein - P51D + B17G
Namu - Helldiver
Majuro - P38H, B17F
Efate - A29 Hudson
Rabaul/New Britain (its spread out) - P38, P38G, 2 x Beaufort VIIIs, Mosquito Mk40, A24 Dauntless


Not that the Japanese are slouches either. With Saipan, Truk and the Philippines they have 7 LBA covering the Bismarck Sea potentially... Seems like the path to Iwo Jima at least is safer than it was, though, another 2 LBA covering it now.

[EUBanana]

Other games came into my life, specifically friends nagging me to play Overwatch, so there's been none of this for a while.

But the intent was always to finish and I have some spare moments now, so here we go.

Axis impulse #3, Jul/Aug 44.

Germany takes a land, Japan takes a combined, they have some tropos to TRN to China, Italy will always be a combined as they move their dregs around.

No naval combat aside from BB Roma being bombed by a Beaufort in the Italian Coast. The last few struggles of the Italian naval remnant. Lots of potential combat from US subs in the Pacific but it doesn't happen.

No airstrikes from Germany. They do rail some units to Sevastapol, to the HQ there. Aside f rom the blitzed and disorganised panzers, they take up defensive lines on the Seine in France. The Alpine passes look absolutely rock solid to me, factors around the 30 mark in the defence, the CW isn't going through there.

the Eastern Front though is tissue thin. Its why no ground strikes, the Luftwaffe will have to pull a miracle out of the bag in defensive ground support this turn.

[EUBanana]

France being shored up...

[EUBanana]

Just generally an exceptionally thin front line in the east... Pskov is better, in fact German armour is building, but not enough to risk another attack this impulse I think.

[EUBanana]

Meanwhile in China, the Japanese get their Franks and their ARM onto Chinese territory. As the Franks will completely dominate Chiang's lend lease I think that will help a lot even though the ground units are a bit one sided now in China's favour. And China has no counter to the ARM either.

[EUBanana]

So, Allies go, everybody takes a land action.

The Russians wanna smash through that thin line while the opportunity presents itself, so blow an O-chit, their last one, on Zhukov, who is centre-north, just SW of Moscow.

The air action is busy, Chiang doesn't dare the Franks, the the Allies elsewhere do. The German defence is quite weak, they shoot down a B26C over Rouen though. On the Eastern Front the Soviet fighters hold them back.

[EUBanana]

Then is just a mighty mass of ground combat... which the Allies win almost everywhere. The Eastern Front is torn to pieces. There's even movement in Greece.

Unfortunately my screenshots got scrubbed! The Allies rolled pretty well, everything above a 10, but most of their attacks were at +10 or more so everything went very, very well.

The frontline around Kursk, where Zhukov used the O-chit, is just obliterated in a double envelopment of the city. Kesselring in the south, enarly surrounded, is wiped out. The CW push into Bulgaria of all places, having reached the Alps they need to find somewhere else to go now.

Mao manages to push the Japanese back a bit in a mech blitz, but disorganises all his units in the process. That wsa thanks to the intervention of the IJA air force, otherwise it would've been the same deal there, but Chiangs forces didn't even bother trying to engage with the Franks there and +5 air defence made all the difference in the somewhat low factor fights in China.

Oh wait, I have some it, try this...

[EUBanana]

The US don't do that well near Paris. This is again because of air support, combined with a bad roll (but without the air support even the bad roll would've been better results). The cream of the German air force is in France, they should probably be sending it to the eastern front in truth given the battering there, but they are spared annihilation at least.

[EUBanana]

The Germans cut off by Cherbourg almost put up a good fight. It's not a guaranteed win anyway. But the US rolls well enough to smash them, so a few more German units go into the bag.

[EUBanana]

Real Bagration vibes this turn...

The Germans need to go all the way back to the Dnieper I think.

[EUBanana]

Elsewhere, the Americans march a div into Lae unopposed, which means another port/airfield. A P51D moves to Iwo Jima, a bit risky given the tenuousness of supply, but the supply is tenuous for Japan now too. The Marianas has quite a lot of US LBA covering it, so they gotta push.

[EUBanana]

Looks like an O-chit well spent to me - there's basically not much of a front around Kursk at all... the pain isn't over yet either given the German units cut off by ZOC.

[EUBanana]

Less dramatic in China, but the Chinese are the ones pushing / running out of steam, I think Japan can manage a counterattack though later in the turn, so they will try when the ARM is up.

[EUBanana]

Italy is set to become a backwater with those Germans dug in so tight on the Alps. ONly carpet bombing will shift that I think and the US bomber force has taken too many casualties for that.

It's possible a surprise attack on Vichy would work. I wonder if there's anything the Axis can really do about that. Or what the ramifications would be, presumably if the US liberates France then Vichy becomes Allied? In which case the Commonwealth should probably start sniffing around elsewhere. Yugoslavia, or Bulgaria, or even the Pacific.

[EUBanana]

Which they are trying a bit in Bulgaria. Yugoslavia is a mess. The partisans in Greece was holding off the Italians somewhat (who felt compelled to retreat slightly given the possibilities of amphibious invasion behind them to capture Albania).

But Gort is disorged and there are very few CW units there at the moment, and that will remain the case for this turn, seemingly.

[EUBanana]

France isn't a total disaster zone for Germany, especially when you consider the lack of Allied engineers in this theatre... but they have stripped Germany bare to do this, and I guess to an extent the Eastern Front.

[Courtenay]

If I were the Allies, I would be thinking hard about invading Vichy. Remember that there is a good chance of a Vichy unit being removed from the map during ground combat before the ground combat is rolled.

[Centuur]

Why attack Vichy? Don't! If the Allies capture Paris, the Vichy army becomes French again...

RAW:

If the Allies liberate Occupied France (see 13.7.5), Vichy France
ceases to exist. All its territory and all its units are now controlled by
France again.

[Courtenay]

ORIGINAL: Centuur

Why attack Vichy? Don't! If the Allies capture Paris, the Vichy army becomes French again...

RAW:

If the Allies liberate Occupied France (see 13.7.5), Vichy France
ceases to exist. All its territory and all its units are now controlled by
France again.

Oops. I completely forgot that rule. In every game I've played, either the Allies have attacked Vichy early, or, more frequently, the Axis has collapsed Vichy.

Sorry!

Given that rule, the Axis should collapse Vichy quickly!

[Centuur]

ORIGINAL: Courtenay

ORIGINAL: Centuur

Why attack Vichy? Don't! If the Allies capture Paris, the Vichy army becomes French again...

RAW:

If the Allies liberate Occupied France (see 13.7.5), Vichy France
ceases to exist. All its territory and all its units are now controlled by
France again.

Oops. I completely forgot that rule. In every game I've played, either the Allies have attacked Vichy early, or, more frequently, the Axis has collapsed Vichy.

Sorry!

Given that rule, the Axis should collapse Vichy quickly!

That isn't that easy anymore. If the US plays it right, the Allies might be able to prevent Axis units from entering Vichy...