Global War Solitaire

[yvesp]

The allies are lucky: with this round of combat, they will return to land two dangerous units with little risk to themselves.

[yvesp]

The allies show their objective: Their objective looks like opening a new front in France. Otherwise, such a pincer attack makes little sense. The attacks are placed in such a way that no reasonable immediate retaliation is possible, which will leave an impulse to reinforce with additional forces.

The British infantry could be completely surrounded, but this would entail moving the Brest garrison and turn it down immediately after its move. This doesn't look like a smart move as it is weak and would certainly be badly beaten by the infantry and an armored reinforcement, with the help of British air power and shore bombardement.

[yvesp]

The axis reaction cannot be fast: it has troops in the West front, but obviously, the allies always invades as far as possible. And France is large: it is difficult to hold it with less than two Headquarters. But headquarters are always in short supply!

Invading Vichy has of course the additional inconvenient that there cannot be nearby troops to hold the front. The German alternative was to collapse Vichy, which has inconvenients of its own. An hostile Vichy brings 4 infantry corps that can slow down the allied advance ; a cllapsed Vichy would consumme yet more corps that are required to man the east front!

Maintaining peace with Russia is now of paramount importance: it is unclear that the allies can break the German army all by themselves: up to now, the German production is much larger than its losses on the west front (mainly in fighters / start bombing)

[yvesp]

On the second impulse, the British capture Nantes. This is not a lucky shot, although it could have turned ill. In addition they have brought air reinforcements in the form of five fighters. This should give the axis pause to think before trying to bring bombers.

Note that the game had a bug which I tried to turn around: the 8-3 invading infantry is somehow still loade on its transport (even though the invaded hex was turned British) ; I will have to play by thinking as if the hex NW of Nantes contained it. It is a small mind game, because it would not attack, and the German would not attack it either.

The Americans have disembarked four additional corps, tranported a paratrooper infantry, and paradropped in yet another hex. This makes their position quite extended. Even should they be repulsed in one place, they are likely to keep some toe hold in southern France.

However, Americans have a big problem: They don't have any Headquarter available : moving inland means no supply, and no additional unit can be brought, except marines or those units carreid by amphibious transport. As a matter of fact, everything is on land now!

Nevertheless, the Germans have a problem: they don't have enough troops in France to repel two simultaneous forming front. One front would be manageable. Two is too much : the best they can hope is containment. Like the allies, the problem will be about whom can reinforce the faster. The longer the turn, the better for the axis. Possibly, the allies have invaded too early in the turn, but one never knows: there have been May/June turns with but bad weather...

[yvesp]

The Germans are put out of balance by the loss of Nantes: this lenghtens the supply road to Brittany and are compelled to advance Von Bock to keep the 5-4 infantry supplied. They manage to form a line that the British should not that easily break, especially inland with no ship support.

In the south of France, the Germans have more trouble: they can hardly form a line ; in the east, they are shuffling troops around and weakening the Russian front: the worse case will require manning an eleven hexes front, that is twenty two army corps ; this is not that simple to find the required units and put them in position. They actually expected to have time for that and were surprised by a so early invasion.

Italians units can hardly leave Italy, Yugoslavia and Greece. Without any supporting german units, Italy will feel somewhat weak! Still, it started slowly and is ending up strong (17 production) ; the contrary of Japan (4 production this turn.)

[yvesp]

The British take their chance and succeed. This puts the German west front off balance, at least for some impulses. This is a huge gain for the allies.

[yvesp]

Hoepfully for the Italians, this raid whose purpose was trying to surprise second line ships (tansports in the 0 box) did end well : the naval air combat was unconclusive, but the axis had to abort.

[yvesp]

The German have now some serious material to hold the allies to the shores. Counter-attacking yet would be risky : in the South, there are not enough troops ; bad luck would open up a boulevard, reasonable luck would disorganize the attackers and probably leave lanes opened for the Americans. In the North, the strong available air support from Great Britain is a strong deterrent. If one watches carefully, one can see many disorganized units there: this front is not dormant! At least three German fighers and bombers have been involved.

[yvesp]

The much expected Nippo-American encounter has finally happened: nine Japaneses carriers against four Amaerican carriers. The American could have chosen a gun combat, but took the risk of a naval air combat, knowing full well that they would lose it, whereas they would easily win a gunnery battle. But in an air-air combat, they hoped to get at least one omber through: with poor anti-air against one bomber only, a result against a Japanese carrier was possible. On the contrary, not too good luck should not lead to a disaster.

The air-air combat did not turn as expected: the Japanese got three bombers through, the Americans none.

[yvesp]

Yet, the American reasoning held. The 'destroyed' was turned to a 'damaged', thanks to the good protection enjoyed by the US carriers. The risk were indeed under control.

[yvesp]

The fleets at the beginning of the battle.

[yvesp]

The losses for the turn ; this doesn't include damaged ships or lost pilots of course.
Italy lost its production for the turn, but in non important units (mostly territorial, an expendable cruiser) ; Germany lost more than half its production, which means that its military is still growing ; Japan lost more than what it produced at its peak. With the current blokade, this is a severe drain. Furthermore, the army is still out of supply: some disorganized units were not turned up, if only for lack of oil. The next turn might see the collapse of the Japanese power on the continent, provided the allies can maintain the blocus: this is not yet done, especially since their attention is fully turned on Europe.

On the side of the allies, China loses more than it produces, but overall it manages to keep its army at a constant size. However, they have no frontline and in no position do really harm the Japanese, except through opportunities. This is especially tru for the Nationalists.

The British losses are serious, about forty percent of their production. But nothing dramatic. The loss of a transport is a sore blow anyway : they will be in great demand in a short while!

The American losses are superficial, and their army increases at an impressive rate.

[yvesp]

Mandchuria at the start of July 43.

Notice the bomber force (there is one more unseen in Vladivostok); it is the scourge of Japan, which doesn't yet have enough fighter defense to keep its airspace clear. The Japanese could sortie their fleet to benefit from fighter cover, but this also has drawbacks of its own.

The Russians are reasonably more numerous that the Japanese, who are very likely going to lose the whole area in a short while, possibly as early as this turn.

[yvesp]

In China, the Japanese situation is now good. The risks on the communication roads are limited. Still, notice the out of supply, but advancing infantry near Wuhan. Preventing such moves is really difficult.

[yvesp]

The progress in South China has been quite good. Yet, the last attack, which was unnecessary, opened the road to the lone infantry advance. That attck, which aimed at removing Chiang from the map, failed. It was a reasonable attack, and the result would have been to remove Chiang from the frontline. This would have quite eased the capture of the few remaining cities which the Japanese have as objective ; most notably the railway line to Vietnam.

[yvesp]

Clarification everywhere: The failure to reinforce Athen (remember the loss of the trnasported armored corps?) had the logical consequence that Greece has fallen. It is unclear that this will pay off as far as military production is concerned, but Athen is an objective hex. Holding four objective hexes is a quite good result for Italy.Now, they must help Germany hold the west!

On the other side of the sea, the Lybian lock has broken. It is hard to imagine Italy trying to defend Tripoli. It is not an objective, and the only reason to die for it would be the Synth Oil (possibly an error to have built it, even though is served it's purpose.)
And holding Greece gives a better access to the East Mediterranean to pester the allies: Greece will always be in supply, it can be railed from/to etc...

[yvesp]

Algier has finally fallen. However, the time gained by the cheap but quite efficient defense used by the Germans (one infantry corps was lost overall, for a gain of three turns to the fall of Algeria) has been offset by the daring invasion of France.

However, it changed the course of the war: the allies initially wanted to invade Italy (hence the British HQ and units there.) Three turns before, Italy looked vulnerable. Not anymore. It remains to be seen if the current invasion will go pfff...

[yvesp]

France at the beginning of July 43.

The troops in Algeria are now free to get north. The timing is almost perfect (Tunisia remains, but that's not that important!) The US troops still have room to develop their front. That's the positive side.

But the British are locked (note that there is an imaginary infantry NW of Nantes.) It is unclear if they will be able to achieve anything more than tie down German troops.

And in the South, unseen, the dreaded 1st SS armor has almost finished crossing the Alps. The Americans have spread wide and large, but they are vulnerable! Yet, it doesn't look like the germans will be able to lock the area around Bordeaux/Toulouse.

[Coeur de livre]

Thoroughly enjoying this AAR, plenty of twists and turns and some interesting strategic choices for both sides to make. Classic WiF. Thank you.

[yvesp]

Thanks!

Doing my best with all the Nations involved.

My greatest frustration was when Germany could not attack Russia in 41 despite having built and garisoned to the maximum, and later had to renounce attacking Russia when it had the possibility. But I think that was the best choice. I also think that my next big frustration will be Russia not being able to attack Germany, or too late! But this one is less certain should Germany draw more forces from the east wall orpossibly when the war with Japan at last terminates and troops can be sent west. Initially, it was not in my plans.

I still had a bit of role-play with Mussolini, which explains why he entered so late in the war and why he is not asking the help of the Wermacht thank you! It doesn't hurt the balance of the game as he performs quite well on his own. I don't feel early entry would have hurt the allies, but it could have hastened US entry by one more turn! And US entered fast!

It is also interesting to note that not taking it's share of Poland was an overlook for Russia! It was not intended, but instead a consequence of a shift of focus due to the Japanese moves at start. It had deep consequences!

I'm quite uncertain of the current invasion outcome. Looks still weak, although promising. Could be botched by some bad/good rolls. But was really helped by the good carpet bombing roll (a 20% chance, which felt better to take than to just attempt an useless -at this point- strat bombing) ; this was helped by the fact that German fighters had already been used earlier, and that all rebases were being used to bring back bombers from the east. When I played the German, I overlooked the possibility of carpet bombing, and in any case I think I would have taken the risk anyway.

As I said, that was also unplanned 3 turns before, the target being Italy! But events must be accounted for and plans changed accordingly! It is also interesting to note that if one roll had failed (the initial attack on Casablanca, which was then followed by the fall of Morocco), then the game would most probably also have taken a quite different direction. That is the greatness of WiF: some battles really change the way the game takes!

I was also surprised at how the Chinese theater plays, and the Japanese suffered enormously from that! It's quite different from the standard non-european scale in the boardgame. It feels more like chess; few combat, mostly outguess the opponent by astute moves. Take opportunities offered by the weather, double impulses, enemy units immobilized after a combat etc. In a second game, I will be much more smarter with the Japanese! They should really be doing much better than that!

Currently, my game is in limbo as I am stuck by a bug that doesn't let me exit from a phase. I would have to go back many phases by fecthing the apprpriate auto-save to avoid that problem, which is rather ennoying... I'll probably do it anyway.

Thanks for enjoying my AAR!

Yves