Decline & Fall AAR

[composer99]

Italy and Yugoslavia.

The Yugoslavian defence is, as with the rest of the Balkans, meant to get resources through.

Germany's available forces in Italy are pretty small. I'm thinking I need to change the set up; as is it's vulnerable to getting punched up along the line.

Unfortunately the shortage of land units means getting coastal coverage up the line is difficult. Fortunately (sort of) the logistical demands of Overlord mean the Allies probably won't be invading... yet.

[composer99]

The heart of the Grossdeutches Reich.

The Germans would feel a lot better having, say, a dozen more air units sitting around.

[composer99]

The Scandinavian defence.

Beneath the NAV are two hefty blitz corps. They start the set up in the "Norway, Finland, Denmark" zone, but suffice to say they will be headed elsewhere soon (Poland springs to mind...)

[composer99]

The defence of northern France and the Low Countries.

Germany just doesn't have enough corps to sit everywhere it wants. So instead of trying to defend everywhere, the Germans have set up to try to get the Allies to land in Normandy.

The blitz units are scattered in the woods, but are set up so they can smack down an invasion pretty much anywhere north of the Garonne. Sticking them in the forests is also key to protect them from Allied airpower.

Speaking of airpower, incredibly the Germans do not start with any specifically in France, although they do have some more-or-less freely set up planes that have been placed here. So they have a bunch of planes stacked up in the Rhineland to fly in. Hopefully not too late...

[composer99]

The weakest area of the German defence: the southern part of France.

Unfortunately for Germany, the requirement for reinforcements in the East and against the Overlord landings will probably postpone reinforcement of this sector... until it is too late, likely as not.

[composer99]

The Axis powers' reinforcements for the July/August turn. Hopefully they will be enough.

[composer99]

The Axis powers' reinforcements for September/October turn. These will get a boost from this turn's production in the land unit and fighter department particularly.

[composer99]

The Axis powers' reinforcements for the November/December turn. Pretty paltry, but this turn's production should see this amount increase. Still, it won't look like much if stacked up against the piles the Allies will doubtless be seeing.

[composer99]

The Axis powers' construction pool.

Germany and Japan might build the submarines out. Everything else takes 5-6 turns to arrive. For Germany, May/June 1945 is probably not a time they will need more battleships for...

[composer99]

The repair pool.

For those not familiar with this part of the game: units in the repair pool suffered major damage (or in some cases are considered to be undergoing significant re-fitting, e.g. for ships belonging to a power that is neutral at the start of a scenario).

They cost less to repair and take less time to arrive on the map than naval units built from the force pool or naval units from the construction pool.

That being the case, while I can't really see the Germans repairing any of their ships here, I can see the Japanese repairing the cruisers for the purpose of defending their convoy lines from submarines or as pickets to slow down Allied rushes.

[composer99]

The Axis reserves.

Most of these are airplanes; there are a few "city-based volunteer" units that the Axis may be eligible to place on the map.

Look at the pilots/offensives panel at the lower right hand corner of the form.

You can see that Japan has quite a few pilots in reserve, the result of having planes too heavy to fit on its light carriers.

More ominously, though, you can see that Germany has no offensive chits. In the late game it's a good idea for Germany to have an offensive chit (or two) to use, either to crush an Allied beachhead or salient, or to use in a "super-combined" allowing withdrawal by all units along all fronts.

[composer99]

As discussed, I need to re-think the Germans' Eastern Front set up some.

Complicating matters is the rule shown in the excerpt from the scenario set up tables.

[Ur_Vile_WEdge]

One trick you might want to do, is when you're re-doing the setup, be sure to put a German convoy point in each of Helsinki and Oslo; then, unless and until they get killed, you have a German unit in Norway, and a German unit in Finland, so you'd be able to move through Sweden. Especially if you want to make a rapid rail out of Norway, it can be useful. I don't remember offhand whether or not you can move the Finnish units through Sweden, but it might let you maneuver a few more bodies around.

[composer99]

Yes, I will do that.

[composer99]

Here is the revised German set up.

To bolster up the Ukraine sector and still meet the rule requirement, I had to leave a thin screen of crappy infantry in the Baltics and [s]Belarus[/s] Belorussia (darn period name conventions).

(On the plus side, the Germans know where they'll be getting the units to build to bolster their Balkan, Italian, and southern French defences now...)



Canny readers might spot the V-rockets in Poland (They set up in the Eastern Front region). I'm going to move them on account of the possibility of partisans popping up. At any rate, they will be redeploying to the West to try and strat bomb England. Surely the rocket attacks will compel the British to seek terms!

[composer99]

Well, with that done, on to the Allied set ups.

(Er, well, almost. Turns out I needed to put a unit in Sevastopol, which remains under German control as of the start of this scenario.)

[composer99]

For the Allies, rather than post separate set ups for each major power, I will post a set of screen captures for the Western Allies as a whole and for the USSR on its own. That will cut down on the amount of work I have to do creating screen captures.

[composer99]

With respect to the above post, France has done its setup, but it will not be shown here until I show the Allies set up.

For the USSR, the Red Army scrapped a lot of older-model anti-tank and anti-air guns, and lots of old bomber and fighter designs.

[composer99]

USSR Overall Strategy

There is nothing subtle about the USSR's strategy in this stage of the game. A phrase that most concisely and accurately summarizes the USSR strategy is as follows:

HULK SMASH!!!!

With that in mind, let us quickly examine the theatres/fronts/sectors that this particular hulk has to smash.

The Eastern Front
This front can be divided into several sectors (to begin with): Karelia, Finland, Baltic/Belorussia, Ukraine, and Rumania. Of course, most of these sectors will collapse into Poland/Germany and Balkans/Austria by this time next game year. But that is a bit beyond the scope of figuring out set-up.

Other Fronts
Well, pretty much everywhere else the USSR might have to field an army is a secondary "other" front. The three sectors to consider are Persia, Manchuria, and Vladivostok region.

[Klydon]

Great job on this AAR and thanks for doing it. Very instructive of a game period that perhaps many do not see.

I do have a couple of questions/comments:

The Japanese Tokai air unit: In a word; worthless! (I can imagine the comment when that unit was drawn out of the pool. [:D] )

The Japanese have a lot of carriers coming on line, but unfortunately don't have the aircraft to fill them up. While the Allied navy is going to be truly daunting, bolstering the Japanese navy with 4-5 flat tops WITH air could really result in a big time bloody nose. I am guessing between oil issues and time, this is hard for the Japanese to pull off.

I noticed there are two Shinano counters in the reserve pool. They appear to be identical except one has a air group rating of 3 and the other has a air group rating of 6. Just wondering what the deal is on them.

Keep up the good work. Very enjoyable to follow along.