WAW6T- Axis GrumpyMel and Lunaticus

[GrumpyMel]

September 27th, 1940

Sarajevo falls to my Romanian forces and with it the Yugoslav army is nearly destroyed. In the Atlantic, we loose 4 U-boats this turn with no losses for the enemy save some supply. The battle here is not going well for us...still, we are generaly doing what we intended...keeping the West concentrating on defending his supply lines rather then disrupting our plans. I had rather we not loose so many subs doing so. If we had saved them and used them as a pack we might be able to threaten some Allied capital ships. On the other hand, the West might have felt less threatened and done more to disrupt my plans Europe.

Italian North Africa falls to Western forces this turn. There was really not much I could do about preventing that and it's not much of a loss.

Pictured below are my kills and losses in the war so far, as well as for the turn.

[GrumpyMel]

October 25th, 1940

A quiet settles over the Atlantic and Western Europe, as forces on both sides watch the leaves turn and the skies turn grey in anticipation of the coming snow. Production shifts slowly towards supply to sustain our armies through the cold months and await the spring thaw.

Yet the Balkans are anything but quiet as it is Greeces turn to have the hammer fall upon her. Elements of the 5th & 6th Army launch the attack with the assistance of air and sea forces. Along the western coast, Greek Forces holding a critical blocking position on a road through the hills are hammered first by air strikes and then shelled by the Regia Marina. This allows 6th Armies armor to brush the defenders aside without any loss to themselves and push along the road toward Athens and Corinth... a critical element of the advance.

Although I dislike giving away my fleets position to the enemy in this manner, thier bombardment helps save losses among the ground troops. This early, the Italian Navy is still a potent force in the Med... so if the RN Med Fleet wants to come out to challenge us we're willing to oblige. Though I want to make sure to preserve the Regia Marina as a threat in being. The simple threat they pose to keep the enemy cautious in the Med is actualy more important than any other combat contribution they might make.

In the East, Bulgarian troops with air and artillery support take Thesaloniki, severely mauling the Greek garrison there.

I suspect the West will likely try to evacuate what forces he can salvage from Greece to North Africa. Whether he opts for this or attempts to reinforce the Greeks, I have deployed a screen of U-boats and Italian Submarines around the Greek coast to thwart his efforts and cut Greece off from assistance.

You can see my opening moves here.

[GrumpyMel]

The results of our moves are pictured below. Note the armored column that has broken through the hills in the west and the screen of submarines in the south cutting off Greece from assistance. These are the 2 critical elements for a quick and decisive victory in Greece.

[GrumpyMel]

In Africa, we're trying something a little bizarre. I haven't tried this before, so we'll see if it works out. Essentialy, I view Africa as a distraction from more important Theatres (like Russia) . I'd rather not waste alot of resources contesting it. Which means I'll likely loose it, should the West make a serious effort. This wouldn't be much of an issue at all save for the fact that the Italians loose 20 morale each turn they don't keep at least 20 Power Points of troops in Africa. Even though I'm not building much in the way of Italian ground forces, thier Navy is still important to me and I'd prefer to avoid it being handicapped with morale issues.

So I'm trying a bizarre strategy to avoid the morale loss without a major commitment to the defence of Africa. I've built a force of 22 Italian Scouts in Tripoli. The plan is to send them off into the deep desert, as far as they can get before thier supply runs out. With scouts ability to hide and store supplies, I'm hoping it will be a royal pain for the West to hunt them down, find them and knock them out. If the West does make a significant effort in Africa this may help me avoid the morale loss for a few turns. We'll see if it works out or if it was a lame brain idea. At least I'm asking the Italians to hide, instead of fighting and becoming POW's for the Brits.

Anyways the cinematics appeal to me. A lost legion of scruffy Italian soldiers sitting around some wadi in the desert just waiting for the opportunity to spring out of hiding and rebuild thier empire. Could make a plot for a bad Hollywood movie.

[rjh1971]

Backside to your plan is that the game engine plots the frontline so your oponents will know you have a unit operating in the desert. That feature would be something to modify, no frontline would greatly improve the FOW.

[british exil]

Or maybe a frontline stays in place since the last recon and changes only when/if you have units in the area. Would as Rafael says greatly increase the FOW.

Mat

[Lunaticus_matrixforum]

Turn 16 played.
Actually so far Japan has been very passive if not to say peaceful [>:]
We have upgraded to Guns II and Heavy Infantry II and sent our fleet South to winter quarters.
While the US is supplying our fleet we are beginning to build some artillery and infantry units.

Question: Is there a list of Chinese cities which need garrision? I have heared that the list of cities are all which have "occupied" or "Chinese" as citizens as well as Taiwan, right?

[GrumpyMel]

ORIGINAL: rjh1971

Backside to your plan is that the game engine plots the frontline so your oponents will know you have a unit operating in the desert. That feature would be something to modify, no frontline would greatly improve the FOW.

In this specific case, I think the plan is still reasonably viable. I've rarely seen the West flip much of the desert terrain away from the coast in Africa. Usualy they flip a broad band of hex's along the North African coast, but most of the terrain away from the coast tends to remain Italian territory long after the West has captured the rest of Africa. Since there is nothing down there to capture, most players I've seen don't bother to send anyone down to exert control over the territory. If my opponent doesn't do that, I might be able to get way with hiding a unit down there without drawing any notice to it. That's what I'm hoping anyways. If not, Graziani is going to have to do some fast talking to explain why he sent an entire division off to guard an empty sand dune [;)]

[GrumpyMel]

November 22nd, 1940

The weather holds fair. A good break for us as it means less production devoted to supplies to feed our forces and more on producing combat units for our offensive against Russia in the Spring. Already we have sufficient forces stationed at the border to cow Russia until we are ready to attack. However I am carefull not to go over the 1500 power point limit that will wake them before Feb. I want the Soviets to have as little preperation as possible. I have saved sufficient Political Points to purchase Armor II tech this turn. This will proove invaluable in upgrading my mechanized forces for the coming campaign.

The West remains relatively quiet save for some futile defensive moves in Greece and sinking one of my U-boats in the Atlantic. I am doing a reasonable amount of damage to his supplies despite the scant forces I have commited there. Most of my submarines are in the Med. now, blockading Greece. I have quite a reasonable naval presence there now. Still no air activity from the West. I must confess, this has me a bit perplexed. I would have thought my opponent would have attempted some deep bombing raids to damage my production capacity but so far nothing since I turned back his raid on Amsterdam. This has allowed me to produce at full capacity and to nearly complete my Flak net. It is possible my opponent fears my fighter defences and is waiting until they are involved in Russia to unleash his bombers. It may also be that he hasn't invested in a bomber fleet and is going some other route, although so far he has offered no clue as to what that might be. However, I can't assume that to be the case, and it's only prudent for me to continue building my air defence grid. I haven't needed to devote excessive resources to it so far, and at the very least I'll have some protection for my major production centers. Needless to say, I await the Spring and Summer with interest. I can't imagine he'll let them pass without doing something to try to dilute a bit of pressure from Russia, the question is what? If it's not an air campaign... will he try an early invasion? I'll have to be prepared for the possibility at least. 41 should be an interesting year.

Meanwhile, back to the present. My forces in Greece continue to disect the Greek Army. The enemy has made no attempt to reinforce or withdraw his Greek forces. Instead he moved them to block the route to Athens as best he could. Without support, this effort was futile, however as 5th and 6th Army tore through the blocking forces with the aid of air, artillery and naval gunfire. The Regia Marina offered a particularly effective bombardment of one position, moving through the Corinth straights which I had just captured. Nothing stands between me and Athens now and the Greek HQ stationed there is entirely insufficient to defend it .

Pictured are my operations in Greece.

[Lunaticus_matrixforum]

Turn 17:
Japan to her shock discovers that the Chinese army is doing a massive campaign of armament close to the Chinese-Japanese border. We saw hordes of infantry on our borders as well as heavy infantry II upgrades.
The Japanese people is in a state of shock as to this threat.
The Japanese ministry of war convenes in an emergency meeting and calls all Japanese to get some combat training and prepare to repel the Chinese invasion.
Most Japanese factories switched to mass produce Artillery II units to aid in the defense.

[ehzorg]

Very nice AAR. Kind of a shock to see those U-Boats in the Med, but overall I think it's a nice gambit that's been made available by widening the straits of Gibraltar in these later versions of WaW revised.

Keep the turns coming

[GrumpyMel]

Dec 20, 1940


The snows finaly arrive in Europe. Let us hope that they do not last long. Athens falls before the end of the year. The enemy had evacuated most of his remaining forces from Athens, via strategic transfer from North Africa. My U-boat blockade got a fair number of these troops in transit, although most of them did make it out in spite of that. I probably should have parked my subs right off the harbor. The last remaining defenders got lucky and took out a Romanian light tank before succumbing.

All eyes now turn East and my forces are moving into position to await the Spring. No other real action, save for a few supplies intercepted to Malta and the one U-boat I left operating in the North Atlantic running into an enemy DD group....we quickly moved away from them, lets see if they can find him. I still want to make some appearance of harrasment of the West's shipping lanes in the Atlantic. We'll see if he has anything up his sleeve once the thaw comes.

[82ndtrooper]

ORIGINAL: ehzorg

Very nice AAR. Kind of a shock to see those U-Boats in the Med, but overall I think it's a nice gambit that's been made available by widening the straits of Gibraltar in these later versions of WaW revised.

Keep the turns coming

In WWII there where a lot of u-boats in the med. In fact far too many. Admiral Doenitz only received roughly 1/3 of all available u-boats for the war in the Atlantic. The others where in the med and stationed to defend Norway. Historians think that had Doenitz received the majority of available U-boats he could very well have won the war in the Atlantic and thereby changing the outcome. Its hard to believe that he started out the war with only 60 U-boats and nearly starved Britain anyway. Around 1943-44 he had about 300 but by then it was too late because the Allied ASW technology had passed the Germans U-boat technology.

[82ndtrooper]

oops sorry guys
I got confused and thought this was a different AAR I give you my word that I only looked at the last page here because Ezhorg posted. I never read the rest because I thought it was from a different game and that I had already been reading it.

once again my sincere apology. it wont happen again.

[GrumpyMel]

January 17, 1941


Our remaining U-boat in the Atlantic falls victem to enemy ASW efforts. All else is quiet as snow blankets Europe. With the new year, all eyes remain fixed on the East. Preperations continue, with the Spring will come thunder.

[GrumpyMel]

March 14, 1941
 
The quiet before the storm. Europe remains calm. No activity from the West, although we note that they have built a forward airbase just across the Channel from Pas De Calais. Clearly they are prepairing for something.
 
In the East, the Russians appear to have completely withdrawn from thier Western border, so it appears they will not stand and fight to delay me. I see no evidence of any attempt to blow bridges, so at least the first part of my advance should go quickly. They appear to have reinforced Leningrad...so perhaps they are meeting thier garrison requirements there. We will see.

[GrumpyMel]

April 11, 1941

The day we have long awaited has finaly arrived...the invasion of Russia begins! The sun has melted the snow across the Ukraine and dried the mud left in it's wake. The panzers are fueled and ready and the infantry await the signal to advance as they anxiously grip thier Mk98's and MP40's. Static crackles from the radio and then breif message. 5 full armies stream across the border into the empty vast expanse of Russia. Nowehere is a Soviet Uniform or a Red Flag to be seen!

We attack with 5 well equiped and supplied armies. Composition detailed below. The Soviets have withdrawn from the border everywhere except Finland which they have heavly reinforced. They did not even bother to blow bridges. Thus we are able to advance unopposed as far as our movement will carry us. They did not seem carefull enough to maintain garrison levels, thus we gained the bigger bonus for them not being forward deployed. With the extra PP's we were able to purchase Infantry II this turn....which should prove usefull later in the offensive. Frankly, I think the lack of any defense at the border is a mistake on the Soviets part, it allows me to advance too quickly...even a token defence and a few bridges blown would have helped to slow me down a bit. We'll see if his strategy pays off...but I would have sacrificed a few troops to slow down my advance and build a solid defensive line somewhere inland...as it is...I think I will advance too quickly for him to setup an adequite defence.... but we will see. We will detail progress of each sector in individual posts.

Army Composition and Line of Advance:

Finnish Army = 5 Infantry Divisions...objective Lenningrad

1st Army (East Prussia) = 6 Inf, 1 Mot, 1 PzGr, 2 PZ..... objective Riga (achieved)

7th Army (Warsaw) = 7 Infantry Divisions ..... objective Minsk (achieved)

2nd Army (Southen Poland) = 4 Inf, 1 Mot, 1 PzGr, 6 Pz ..... objective Kiev

6th Army (Romania) = 2 Inf, 1 Cav, 1 Mot, 1 Mech, 3 Pz ..... objective Dnieper river crossings

[GrumpyMel]

April 11, 1941

Finnish Sector: The Soviets have heavly reinforced here. The one sector of the front they seem willing to fight for. Nevertheless we have a major combat bonus due to the Soviet failure to maintain forward deployment. I decide to risk an attack on the Mannerheim line to take advantage of this. The Soviets have around 150 infantry forward deployed in the western most fort. I have about an equal number of SMG's spread between 5 Finn and German divisions...however my troops are well backed by mortars, artillery and infantry guns and have a large combat bonus.

First I move the Kriegsmarine up and drop a marine Division along the Baltic coast to seize an important river crossing. Then I use my ships guns to bombard the Soviet fort, and follow up with an artillery barrage as well. Setting my troops to 100% losses, I order the assault on the disorganized Soviets. We take the fortress with losses that aren't too bad...about 30 of my infantry to 90 of his. Driving the Russians back, we move 2 divisions into the badly damaged fort. The Soviets will likely counter-attack on thier turn with artillery support. This is alright though...it will force them to blow up the fortress, weakening thier defence...plus I will still have my combat bonus till the end of the turn...meaning they should take pretty decent losses in the counter-attack. I may even hold....I want to pressure the defence of Lenningrad as much as I can.

Later in the turn, a Luftwaffe recon flight spots the Western District HQ in a clear hex just outside of Pskov...I take advantage of the opportunity to bomb it with some long range bombers.

[GrumpyMel]

April 11, 1941

Northern Sector:

1st, 7th & 2nd Armies operating here. The Soviets have completely withdrawn from the border, leaving all bridges intact! This allows me to advance as far as my movement points will hold and seize vital river crossings. The 1st makes it as far as Riga while the 7th reaches Minsk, the 2nd is well on it's way to Kiev. I had detailed a number of Airborne divisions to drop behind the Soviet defences and seize key junctions, cutting off lines of supply and retreat. Due to the unpooposed nature of my advance only one of these was used. The others were air-transported upto Minsk and Riga, followed by thier transport planes....allowing me to utilize them next turn if neccsary. Note also due to the fact that I did not have to use most of the Luftwaffe, I was able to rebase them forward to undamaged captured cities. This allows me to protect my columns from Soviet air and will provide my air support that is in range for next turns operation....a major and unexpected bonus.

You can see the extent of my advances below.

[GrumpyMel]

April 11, 1941


Southern Sector:

6th Army operating out of Romania advances unopposed to the banks of the Dnieper. If we can capture the crossings intact next turn, we'll be in awesome shape!