The Grand Ottoman-Russian-French alliance attacks poor Kaiser Ulver

[ulver]

Land action primarily consists of the poor stranded isolated German corps on the Russian Baltic coast getting obliterated. It is an unmitigated disaster that sees two German infantry corps and one cavalry corps whipped out.

Next time remember to land in the last impulse of a turn so you can evacuate in the first impulse of the following turn and do remember to make sure the enemy can not contest the escape route across the seas.

It is the total humiliation of German arms both on land and at sea

A combined Russian.French-Ottoman attack is launched across the Turkish border into Bulgaria. In a replay of the Rumanian offensive it does archive some initial success, capturing a Bulgarian hex only to suffer disaster when trying to exploit it and being utterly crushed in the second impulse of the offensive.

[ulver]

Attempting to redeem its honor after the disaster in the Baltic the High Seas Fleet steams into the Atlantic escorting a full compliment of 7 transporters. On it’s way in encounter a group of British cruisers in the North Sea.

German Helgoland (DN) firing on Br Argyll (CA) : 6 hits
German Konig (DN) firing on Br Argyll (CA) : 1 hits
German Pommern (PD) firing on Br Achilles (CA) : 1 hits

British Achilles (CA) firing on Ger Pommern (PD) : 1 hits

Nice work guys. One can tell the lads are eager for a fight. Then they make it unopposed into the Atlantic where absolutely nothing happens. Amazingly enough the two greatest fleets in the world fails to find each other at all. The sea is swarming with warships and merchantmen but no one see etch other. Well, except for the fact that my submarines gets plastered:

British 4th (DD) firing on Ger 8th (UB) : 1 hits
British 5th (DD) firing on Ger 8th (UB) : 1 hits
British 5th (DD) firing on Ger 2nd (UB) : 1 hits
British 6th (DD) firing on Aus 2nd (Sub) : 1 hits
British 6th (DD) firing on Aus 7th (Sub) : 1 hits
French 4th (DD) firing on Ger 3rd (UB) : 1 hits
French 6th (DD) firing on Ger 3rd (UB) : 1 hits

Austrian 2nd (Sub) firing on Br 6th (DD) : 1 hits
Austrian 8th (Sub) firing on Br 6th (DD) : 1 hits
German 2nd (UB) firing on Br 5th (DD) : 1 hits
German 3rd (UB) firing on Fre 4th (DD) : 1 hits
German 8th (UB) firing on Br 5th (DD) : 1 hits

I must congratulate his destroyers for an amazing effort this turn. My subs failed to find single merchantmen this turn despite unrestricted submarine warfare and massive numbers.


Jul/Aug 1916: Once again the trade goods flow freely into Germany.

Oh, my air force manages to down to of his air point suffering no losses. I’m beginning to suspect I may have technological superiority in the field.

[ulver]

The rest of the long summer sees very little activity on land except for some mutual indifferent shelling accomplishing very little on either side.

In the air I down two air points for the loss of only one – non the less his air strength is growing. As is becoming the norm there is more action at sea then anywhere else.

The German High Seas Fleet remain in the Atlantic protecting German overseas trade.

There are some sporadic exchanges of fire. Well worth the cost to allow Atlantic trading.

German Helgoland (DN) firing on Fre Jean Bart (DN) : 6 hits
German Konig (DN) firing on Fre Jean Bart (DN) : 2 hits
German Yorck (CA) firing on Br Bellerophon (DN) : 1 hits
German Graudenz (CA) firing on Br Colossus (DN) : 1 hits
German Blucher (BC) firing on Br 17th (Tr) : 3 hits
German Blucher (BC) firing on Br 14th (Tr) : 1 hits

French Courbet (DN) firing on Ger Konig (DN) : 5 hits
French Jean Bart (DN) firing on Ger Helgoland (DN) : 5 hits
British Bellerophon (DN) firing on Ger Yorck (CA) : 3 hits
British St.Vincent (DN) firing on Ger Koln (CA) : 5 hits
British Colossus (DN) firing on Ger Graudenz (CA) : 5 hits
British Orion (DN) firing on Ger Yorck (CA) : 1 hits

The Baltic remain contested:

German Elsaas (PD) firing on Rus Petropavlovsk (PD) : 1 hits
Russian Petropavlovsk (PD) firing on Ger Elsaas (PD) : 1 hits

Almost unbelievable, with close to 20 Subs at sea they still fail to find to find any allied shipping. This is getting to be a full-blown disaster

British Donegal (CA) firing on Aus 1st (DD) : 1 hits

Austrian 2nd (Sub) firing on Br Formidable (PD) : 2 hits
Austrian 6th (Sub) firing on Fre 5th (DD) : 1 hits

French 4th (DD) firing on Aus 6th (Sub) : 1 hits
French 6th (DD) firing on Aus 6th (Sub) : 1 hits
French 4th (DD) firing on Aus 8th (Sub) : 1 hits
French 6th (DD) firing on Aus 8th (Sub) : 1 hits

[ulver]

In December the Grand Fleet finally gets the decisive fleet battle it has wanted and gains control of the Atlantic shutting down German trans-Atlantic trade. Fair enough I suppose but how come my 23 (yes you read that right) U-boats fails to detect his merchantmen at all?

German Helgoland (DN) firing on Br Bellerophon (DN) : 3 hits
German Konig (DN) firing on Br Bellerophon (DN) : 4 hits

British Bellerophon (DN) firing on Ger Helgoland (DN) : 4 hits
British St.Vincent (DN) firing on Ger Helgoland (DN) : 6 hits
British Colossus (DN) firing on Ger Konig (DN) : 4 hits
British Orion (DN) firing on Ger Helgoland (DN) : 5 hits

Austrian 2nd (Sub) firing on Br Achilles (CA) : 1 hits

(Yes I set a few Austrian Subs hunting his surface ships)

German Blucher (BC) firing on Fre 2nd (Tr) : 6 hits
German Roon (CA) firing on Fre 9th (Tr) : 1 hits
German Blucher (BC) firing on Br 18th (Tr) : 2 hits

French Courbet (DN) firing on Ger 10th (Tr) : 3 hits
French Jean Bart (DN) firing on Ger 12th (Tr) : 3 hits

The air war sees heavy causalities on both sides while a German counterattack retakes the lost hexes in Bulgaria and advance one hex into Turkey.

[ulver]

Unbelievable!!! With 30 subs at sea and the shipping lanes crawling with allied merchantmen my bloody subs still fails to find anything.

Austrian 2nd (Sub) firing on Br Achilles (CA) : 1 hits
Austrian 7th (Sub) firing on Rus 2nd (DD) : 1 hits
Austrian 1st (Sub) firing on Ott 1st (DD) : 1 hits
Austrian 16th (Sub) firing on Fre 1st (DD) : 1 hits

French 4th (DD) firing on Aus 15th (Sub) : 1 hits
French 1st (DD) firing on Aus 15th (Sub) : 1 hits
French 1st (DD) firing on Aus 16th (Sub) : 1 hits

[ulver]

British 1st (DD) firing on Ger 7th (UB) : 2 hits
British 4th (DD) firing on Ger 5th (UB) : 1 hits
British 5th (DD) firing on Ger 3rd (UB) : 2 hits
French 2nd (DD) firing on Aus 14th (Sub) : 1 hits

German 5th (UB) firing on Br 4th (DD) : 1 hits
Austrian 14th (Sub) firing on Br Donegal (CA) : 2 hits
Austrian 14th (Sub) firing on Fre 2nd (DD) : 1 hits
German 3rd (UB) firing on Br 4th (DD) : 1 hits

That is the 5th turns where 20+ subs on anti shipping have failed to intercept any merchmentmen. There have been no detections since the turn I declared unrestricted submarine warfare.

There is another critical issue where CP corps destroyed cannot be rebuild even if you pay for the arms for them. The combination of those two effects pretty much makes the game unplayable for me.

I have to suspect a game-crippling bug. I suggest we pause and contact Frank.

[boogada]

I suggest we pause and contact Frank.

Should we inform him about the bug in our game too? Its a naval problem as well.

[ulver]

ORIGINAL: boogada

I suggest we pause and contact Frank.

Should we inform him about the bug in our game too? Its a naval problem as well.

Yes I definitely think so – although in that case you can likely just point him to the thread. I my case I need to do some extensive solo play testing to verify the bug. Others seem to have confirmed the CP corps build issue.

[Snowbart1943]

Has a bug been found?  I'm curious if declaring unrestricted warfare is the to go if committing to a massive uboat build from the start. 

[racndoc]

Snowbart....

The unrestricted sub warfare thing was no big deal for the TE. Ulver kept complaining about his "20 plus"subs not hitting anything. What you need to know was those 20 subs were spread over 4 sea zones....so there was never more than 5 subs in the North Atlantic. I only put transports in the North Atlantic and there was always 8-10 DDs there so his subs were kept busy just trying to avoid annihilation.

By 1915, I had given up on placing TE transports in either the western or eastern Med. We ran the May 1917 strategic turn under v1.24 to see how sub warfare had changed if at all....the net result was 2 killed German subs and one French and one British transport sunk...Id take those results any day. Britain was building 3 transports per turn and France was building 2 DDs per turn and was going to get Level 1 ASW any turn so things would have only gotten worse for the CP. I was flooding the North Atlantic with French transports as decoys as I only needed them for amphibious transport of US and British corps when activated. Britain was never short of food the entire war and in fact had sent enough food to Russia to keep them fed into 1919.

Hadnt posted here in a long time. As a postscript, I thought Id place a map of the eastern front circa May 1917. Russia launched a major offensive last turn killing over 220,000 Germans, capturing Warsaw, advancing next to Danzig and isolating Konigsberg. The 2 German corps in Konigsberg were reinforced up to the max 48 strength points in the strategic phase but with a morale of only 4 the Germans were going to lose another 96,000 troops in the next impulse.

[Snowbart1943]

Thanks AdmSpruance! 

[ulver]

The offer to rewind and play from the moment the bug took effect remains very much open. I remain fairly confident I can wipe out the Entente merchant fleet. Once it became clear that there was no transports in the Med (as it would have with no bug) I obviously would have concentrated 80% of my subs in the Atlantic and those five subs in out test inflicted 2.5 – 1 in hits ratio against your entire escort fleet of destroyers.

I would after all not have suffered any greater sub loses then I did with the Bug.

[hjaco]

ORIGINAL: ulver

The offer to rewind and play from the moment the bug took effect remains very much open. I remain fairly confident I can wipe out the Entente merchant fleet. Once it became clear that there was no transports in the Med (as it would have with no bug) I obviously would have concentrated 80% of my subs in the Atlantic and those five subs in out test inflicted 2.5 – 1 in hits ratio against your entire escort fleet of destroyers.

I would after all not have suffered any greater sub loses then I did with the Bug.

Which would bring America in the war in no time eliminating any necessity for deploying transports in the Atlantic for trading purposes as America can freely trade 20 surplus food a turn to Britain without transports on shipping order in the Atlantic.

So apart from shipping the Yanks to Europe and steamroll in an all out assault from the west the Entente really doesn't depend that much on transports anymore [:D]

[Snowbart1943]

I would be interested in seeing Ulver and AdmSpruance rewind and start from the bug and continue this AAR!