Memoires of two Staff Officers (PBEM)

[Chocolino]

Axis, November 9th, 1940

Some unknown force intercepted diplomatically in favor of the Western Allies in Spain - possibly some emerging Asian or South American power?

[cpdeyoung]

November 9, 1940 : Well I have been wondering where my Foreign Legion went. This was lost to a mis-click. Has anyone else noticed how hard it is to click on Malta, where I intended them to rest on their way east. I guess they ended up in the Central Med. Be careful with navigation in these waters!

[Chocolino]

Axis, November 16th, 1940

A RAF fighter must have shot down our plane delivering photo evidence from the front. No pictures this week - sorry.

[cpdeyoung]

November 16, 1940

[Chocolino]

Axis, November 24th, 1940

Deploying in south-western France near the Spanish border, the Luftwaffe can reach some RN units in the SE Atlantic. They evade our air attacks elsewhere. Moscow is encircled and we expect it to fall easily now with our strongest units available for the assault - or will it? We will find out next week.

The Italians bite on granite at El Alamein and some nosy units are attacked by British defenders.

[cpdeyoung]

November 24, 1940

[Chocolino]

Axis, December 1st, 1940

We have severely underestimated the defensive resources of Moscow.

[cpdeyoung]

December 1, 1940

[Chocolino]

Axis, December 9th, 1940

Moscow is completely immune to the Luftwaffe raids and we can again cause only minor damage via land attack. We will have to wait for new siege equipment to arrive at the front in form of L3 tanks.

[cpdeyoung]

December 9, 1940

[Chocolino]

Axis, December 16th, 1940

The two Russian tank corps defending Moscow cause major headaches amongst German planners. Is it really worth it to deploy 5 strong German tank corps in an attack that cannot make progress at all?

[cpdeyoung]

December 16, 1940

[Chocolino]

Axis, December 24th, 1940

A fairly large area of the USSR is controlled by Germany now. But it represents only a very small fraction of the USSR production. And the 30SP in Moscow remain elusive.

[cpdeyoung]

December 24, 1940 : The end of a bad year.

[Chocolino]

January 1st, 1941

Ryazan falls, Kiev is under siege and Gomel isolated while pressure on Kirovgrad is increasing. All is going well - except at Moscow where the defenders continue to defy us.

The Italians have transferred their air force into the desert in order to break the stalemate there. Their main attack is along the coast where they can enjoy help from the RM.

[cpdeyoung]

January 1, 1941

[Chocolino]

January 9th, 1941

Moscow still holds and we have no method to attack it - even if we were to accept heavy losses. But we make good progress in the Russian south end threaten the USSR resource hexes in the Don area.

There is an air battle raging over the desert and the Italians are no match for the RAF. As a result the stalemate at El Alamein continues.

[cpdeyoung]

January 9, 1941

[gwgardner]

Why can't you attack Moscow? Surely you could get at least 4-1 odds on either unit there.

[Chocolino]

That's what I thought but it is surprisingly not the case.

The defender has a 190% bonus making the defending 7SP tank corps act as a 14SP. My 5 attackers can scrape together just below 80SP which get a malus of around mid-fourtish percent (say 47%, don't remember the exact number) even though they attack from 5 sides, making it less than 40SP effectively which is just a 2-1. Any follow on attack is then below 1-1 which means it causes zero damage by definition. (the single attack gets a 23% multiplier). All air attacks (many, many tries) yield "minimal damage" which means they have ZERO effect. It is hopeless until I have L3 tanks and even then it will be costly.