A World Ignites... (AAR)

[Orm]

In Truk I place a few strong cruisers and the submarines.

[Ur_Vile_WEdge]

In response to no particular post; what's Japan's game plan for China? Are we looking for a beat up and contain, or is Japan going to try to knock out China completely?

[Orm]

My current, main, plan is to capture two more resources in China and then beat down and contain. Then I have a secondary plan that is more ambitious and that is to cut the Burma road. But I do not expect to begin on the secondary plan before I can occupy French Indo-China.

Edit: But the plans might change on short notice depending on how the war progress.

[peskpesk]

ORIGINAL: Orm

ORIGINAL: Neilster

A winter war against Finland? Hey...c'mon...what could possibly go wrong? That puny Finnish army against the might of the Red Army? [:D]

Of course nothing could go wrong. Our troops would soon march into Helsinki. Those capitalists has no stomach to fight our heroic soldiers. And winter is just a state of mind. If one is resolute in attack then cold is no obstacle for the Soviet Army.


A picture of the Finnish force pool and the units that would be set up if Finland enters the war. Note that three of the units are 'reserve' units in 1939 and will arrive as reinforcements. The reserves are the 6-5 Mot, 4-3 Mil and the fighter (FTR2). Finland will get more units in the future but this is the situation in 1939.

Well as Finnish general I would be very happy since the Russian TRS is not in sight anywhere

[Ur_Vile_WEdge]

Without a marine, the TRS can at most support a division with a corps somewhere if the Soviet division captures a port.


Nah, you want to make those capitalist dogs sweat bullets out? Train up the para on the first turn. He can jump right into Helsinki with one of our glorious 4 engined bombers from way far away.

[Orm]

And now it is time for me to begin setting up the last Major Power, Germany. As usual it begins with scrapping units.

I scrap the three obsolete fighters. I am pretty sure everyone scraps them. I only scrap one land unit, the 5-4 MOT. And I would not even scrap that land unit if the game were played without the oil option.

With the ships I scrap every single one that I can. Even when scrapping so many TRS I feel that there will be enough sealift available in the force pools to attempt an invasion of UK if that is the plan.

[Klydon]

While I realize the last sub selected to be scrapped may not appear to be very good when it comes to attack factors, the one thing about it that it has over all other subs would be the combination of speed and range. In short, it can get further and be higher in the sea box than any other sub the Reich has in its build pool. I would think the threat of this range would also put some additional stress on the UK ASW defenses as well in that they have to guard more sea areas to keep that one from showing up someplace.

[Orm]

ORIGINAL: Klydon

While I realize the last sub selected to be scrapped may not appear to be very good when it comes to attack factors, the one thing about it that it has over all other subs would be the combination of speed and range. In short, it can get further and be higher in the sea box than any other sub the Reich has in its build pool. I would think the threat of this range would also put some additional stress on the UK ASW defenses as well in that they have to guard more sea areas to keep that one from showing up someplace.

I agree with you that the last sub is a nice weapon due to its great range and I often keep it, although I prefer subs with speed of five or more.

But the reason that I scrapped it this time is because of the Italian submarine force. I should have mentioned it when I placed the Italian units. Italy picked a submarine with four range and that unit will force the Western Allies to escort convoys in areas they would prefer not to. So therefore I scrapped the German long range U-boat in the hope of getting faster German U-boats from the start.

[Orm]

There are no set up rules or different set up areas when I place the German units. So I can place every available units as I please (as long as it is in a German controlled hex).

I place a majority of my forces on the Polish border. The three undefended cities on the French border are where six of the reserve corps are going to be placed.

[Ur_Vile_WEdge]

You're not putting your best HQ with the main force? I'm curious as to why you'd really need a HQ on the western front at all, but surely, Bock or Leeb would suffice for some re-org.

Unless, are the Germans planning on a fancy attack both east and west? Try to knock out the Netherlands in the fall or something?

Double edit: Nvm, that's a convoy point.

[Orm]

And a picture of the current German U-boats.

[Orm]

And a picture with plenty of flyouts that show the German set up in detail.

Unfortunately the picture does not look as well as I wanted. [:(]

[Orm]

And a closer look on the armies on the Polish border and the Polish force pool.

[Orm]

ORIGINAL: Ur_Vile_WEdge

You're not putting your best HQ with the main force? I'm curious as to why you'd really need a HQ on the western front at all, but surely, Bock or Leeb would suffice for some re-org.

Unless, are the Germans planning on a fancy attack both east and west? Try to knock out the Netherlands in the fall or something?

Double edit: Nvm, that's a convoy point.

I like putting a few strong units in the west. If opportunity arrives I can declare war on Netherlands or even Belgium. If France decide to attack my weak garrisons I can gather a force to counter attack.

[Neilster]

The picture with all the fly-outs is fine. It really shows what's going on. As a side note, my friend and I used to play with a house rule that the Germans couldn't put too much stuff in East Prussia. It just didn't seem very historical.

Cheers, Neilster

[Orm]

I have not yet continued with my game. But I decided to take a peek ahead and look at how Poland could place their units.

This is my first attempt to place the Polish units. What do you think? Suggestions are welcome. Please help me set up the Polish units as good as possible.

[composer99]

[s]The only thing I would worry about is the German stacks north of Lodz.

If they are strong enough that you could get a 2:1 attack just with their factors, they could easily boost it up to a 4:1 with the Stukas. A surprise impulse attack on the city is feasible.[/s]

Never mind the above, the Germans don't have the land unit factors to get to 2:1 with what's in East Prussia.

So if they want to attack Lodz they better be feeling lucky.

[Orm]

Lodz has 8 in defence. Germany can attack with two 14 strength stacks making it a 3 to 1 attack with a chance on 4-1 (remember that the attacking units are not halved by the river hex side due to the surprise effect). This includes the engineer that cancel the negative factory modifier. Using two aircraft add another 7 air factors that doubles into 14 because of the surprise effect makes it a versus 42 versus 8 attack or 5-1. This attack has a 50% risk of disorganizing the attackers and use up half of Luftwaffe. To get positive die modifiers on the attack most of the remaining air force would have to ground strike Lodz.

While this, most likely, captures Lodz in the first impulse it leaves few aircraft to help the assault on Warsaw.

It might be worth a risk to take such attack so what do you think? Any changes to the polish defence needed?

[Eradanfaroth]

If the German Player is such a gambler, why didn't try an assault directly on Warsaw ?
It ends the war in the first impulse (if it succeeds of course).

This is the main reason that many CW players place a unit just in north of Lodz and Warsaw.

Edit : you can achieve a 5-1 odds with the engineer unit and the two stukas and throw in the Do17 and Heinkel 111 to ground strike the hex => good chance to have a +2 modifier to your die wich lead to a 2 needed to leave the hex empty. Warsaw taken, Polish war is over.

[Snydly]

Can Germany attack the 4(2)2 HQ in Brest-Litovsk ... or are they forbidden by the Soviet Pact to enter the land?