My second AAR (again)

[yvesp]

The French position is becoming increasingly perilous. One hardly sees Paris holding through the summer.

[yvesp]

But in China, the situation has been stabilized.

[yvesp]

While the French repatriate the battleships in Toulon, the German launch their assault on Paris, which, to the surprise of the whole world, holds!

[yvesp]

Italy decide that it can now try to participate in the combat in France and moves through the weakly defended Alpine passes.

[yvesp]

The world is holding its breath in the expectation of the fall of paris. But summer is passing away, and Paris still stands!

Pass action for all allies, roll of 1 for a success of 2 or less... The allies where quite lucky this turn: it was short, and bad combat rolls spoiled the German and Japanese expectations...

[yvesp]

Anyway, the situation in France is less than engaging.

The USA requisition the Bearn and turn it into a transport. This seems to have some impact and the tension against Germany increases somewhat. However, in a general way, the US public opinion is rather apathic, impervious to what happens in the rest of the world.

The French will not be receiving any help soon: the British now have only the Wavell HQ, which is very busy keeping Egypt safe, so they cannot help. They will not be in a position to help before at least 6 months... Better say never!

Note the extremely advanced mech and armor units in France. They are now OoS, but this might not last too long. Their objective is of course the easy capture of French cities, in particular factories.

[yvesp]

Discounting the French, there are few losses that turn. The Panzerjäger was actually lost the previous turn and I had to destroy it this turn in a mock attack (bug).

The Russsians once more consider with great interest the german production, consisting again of units clearly design to go west, not east. This will definitely embolden them.
This turn they successfully claimed Bessarabia ; what comes next ?

[yvesp]

Despite a reroll, the axis fails to get the initiative that turn of September.
But unfortunately for the allies, the weather stands good...

[yvesp]

The commonwealth tries to help the French with air rairs, but to no avail.

[yvesp]

Germany retaliates by sending its best bombers on Paris...

[yvesp]

While the Japanese also try to soften up Mao.

[yvesp]

And at Chenchow.

[yvesp]

While the Italian continue pounding Wavell, with some success this time!
At the very least, this should prevent a British counterattack.
Alas, the Italian aim is poor.

[yvesp]

Once more, Paris pulls off an heroic defense, which leaves the attackers quite tired.

[yvesp]

In China, Chenchow falls!

[yvesp]

While German troops blow up the last defense preventing free advance behind Paris.

[yvesp]

China is shaken.
There is no place for any kind of counter-attck, or to threaten the Japanese position.

The nationalist line is just a curtain of extremely weak units, most of which are precious (because once lost, they will not be rebuilt!) ; so it can at most contain the Japanese. Anyway, the lack of a nationalist HQ reduces the possibilities.

In the North, the strong comunist units are facing an army twice their strength, so they can only hope to keep a defensive position.

[yvesp]

In Europe, the French situation is desperate.

[yvesp]

Nevertheless, knowing well that there is little hope, the French mouint an attcka against a small stack of expensive German units. While that won't change the likely result, the fall of France, this will at least make it marginaly more expensive.

The question remains to commit troops to attacks in an appropriate way : losing too many units in fruitless fights would make the conquest of France a viable possibility. But not doing anything looks stupid too...

[yvesp]

This time, Wavell feels the heat of the bombs...