Courtenay's solitaire AAR

[Courtenay]

An American INF XX announce an invasion of the German controlled Mangareva, in French Polynesia. (German controlled because of the Vichy collapse bug; the Axis will not interfere with this operation; having to do this is enough of a waste of Allied resources.)

The Allies attack the INF in Algeria and Tobruk. The CW throw in two points of shore bombardment against Tobruk, making it an automatic attack. The attack against the INF is much more interesting, as MWiF informs me there are two German planes in range -- an extended range He 111H, which I knew about, and a Condor, which I had not. The Condor has an air-to-air value of 2, as opposed to the Heinkel's 1, and the only air cover the Allies have is a three point CVP. The Germans decide to throw in their air power. The Condor rolls a 6, aborting the CVP, while the CVP rolls an 11, letting both bombers through. Suddenly, the Italians have a hope. The Allies fail to get a 1/6 chance of fractional odds, and attack at 4:1, rather than the 6-1 they were expecting. The Italian hopes are dashed, though, when the Allies roll a 17, obliterating the Italians for no loss. The Attack on the -2-3 TERR defending Tobruk is automatic, as is the capture of Mangareva.

Gort reorganizes the American ART unit in Algiers.

Here is the attack on the Italian INF

The Americans move a NAV towards Australia.

[Courtenay]

I just ran into a bug that occurred three impulses previous to my current impulse. (Thus the autosaves are all affected.) I would have to go back and redo about five impulses worth of work. This is disheartening.

This game is already a clear Allied victory. I am very tempted to stop it and start a new one, where the Axis might have a chance. What are people's opinions?

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Courtenay

I just ran into a bug that occurred three impulses previous to my current impulse. (Thus the autosaves are all affected.) I would have to go back and redo about five impulses worth of work. This is disheartening.

This game is already a clear Allied victory. I am very tempted to stop it and start a new one, where the Axis might have a chance. What are people's opinions?

warspite1

What was the bug?

[Courtenay]

It turns out that if you move single ships through enemy submarines that do not intercept, the ships sometimes go wherever you click the mouse. This means that ships are placed on random hexdots, and there is absolutely no way to move them from that position. I have a couple of Japanese cruisers that happened to. The units show up in the unit display form as "Moving". I am very reluctant to continue a game with units in that state, as I am scared that the game might be unstable and errors would propagate.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Courtenay

It turns out that if you move single ships through enemy submarines that do not intercept, the ships sometimes go wherever you click the mouse. This means that ships are placed on random hexdots, and there is absolutely no way to move them from that position. I have a couple of Japanese cruisers that happened to. The units show up in the unit display form as "Moving". I am very reluctant to continue a game with units in that state, as I am scared that the game might be unstable and errors would propagate.

warspite1

That's not good. I have to say I agree with you. Otherwise you will be expecting the game to crash every phase and that's no fun [:(]

We need these naval bugs ironed out.

[Courtenay]

So, should I go back several impulses to where I have a stable save, or should I start a new game?

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Courtenay

So, should I go back several impulses to where I have a stable save, or should I start a new game?

warspite1

Frankly it depends on whether you can be arsed to do the impulses over again....

[Orm]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

ORIGINAL: Courtenay

So, should I go back several impulses to where I have a stable save, or should I start a new game?

warspite1

Frankly it depends on whether you can be arsed to do the impulses over again....

Indeed.

[Courtenay]

ORIGINAL: Orm

ORIGINAL: warspite1

ORIGINAL: Courtenay

So, should I go back several impulses to where I have a stable save, or should I start a new game?

warspite1

Frankly it depends on whether you can be arsed to do the impulses over again....

Indeed.

I can. Do people want me to?

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Courtenay

ORIGINAL: Orm

ORIGINAL: warspite1


warspite1

Frankly it depends on whether you can be arsed to do the impulses over again....

Indeed.

I can. Do people want me to?

warspite1

I think having got this far then, on balance, I would continue. It would be good to have more AAR reaching the later stages of the war.

[Courtenay]

M/A 42 Axis #8:

Ge, Ja Land, It Naval.

The Italians move their last CP to the western Med, escorted by some curisers, and put every battleship they have left in the two box, escorted by the German fighters. Graziani must be saved!

The Italians initiate naval air combat in Cape St. Vincent. Finally the Axis out rolls the Allies, 4 to 5. They find the Allies, the Allies don't find them. The Axis excludes everything but the zero box, giving them four surprise points. They reduce the Allied air-to-air value by 2. The first attack goes in at the German +0, Allies -2. The Allies roll first, and roll a 2. A 2! They shoot down the German fighter, the only 7 point FTR the German have on the map, an FW 190 A2. The Germans respond with a 5, shooting down the front Allied fighter, a 6 point range 5 Spitfire VB. This is not how the Germans hoped things would go. The Axis is very unsure how to proceed. The only FTR they have left is a 4 point twin engine fighter. It will be attacking a -2, with the twin engine shift, while the Allies attack at zero. The Axis decides to fight a round, and see what happens. The Allies roll a 5, shooting down the remain FTR, a Bf 110C. The Axis rolls a 7 in return, which is a good roll, but because of the twin engine shift, has no effect. Seeing a bunch of rolls with the Allies at +2 and the Axis at -4 coming, the Axis decides that this is just not worth it; one or two bombers might get through, only to run into the Allied AA. This was bitterly disappointing result for the Axis. The commander of the lead British air wing gets a VC (posthumous).

Both sides plan to build a lot of fighters this turn.

[Courtenay]

In the Western Med, the Italians decline to fight the Allies, but the Allies do not return the favor. They fly a South African FTR to the zero box. Incredibly, they badly out roll the Italians again, 3 to 8. The pick a surface action against the zero box; they want to get rid of that last convoy point. They save three points to use to pick a target, and are left with an X, 2D, and 2 A. They could change that to 2 X, and in retrospect they probably should have. Instead, they reduce the Italian result from a D to a single A. The Italians respond by taking the X on the convoy point. The D goes on the Attendolo, which saves with a 9 and is aborted. The last D goes on the Trieste, damaging it on a 4. The As inevitably send the Trieste home. The second round, the Allies roll a 10. At last! The Axis rolls a 4, and nobody finds anyone. The Axis wishes they had put the Condor in the 2 box; then they would have found the Allies, and probably destroyed their convoys.

The Germans use one of their ART units to try and disrupt Gibraltar, and send a Stuka after Eisenhower. Both fail.

The Germans pull Guderian out of the line at Gibraltar, having belatedly realized that the fact that he is an ARM unit gives the Allies a -1 from the AA gun; the Germans will be better off attacking with Von Bock.

The Japanese move for an attack to reopen supply to Yamamoto, who use Emergency HQ supply to supply the ART unit stacked with him. The Japanese through their two FTRs in as bombers. The Japanese fail to get their fractional odds roll, and then roll a nine, and it turns out that this worked perfectly, as they got a -/1 result, opening the supply line to Yamamoto at no cost to themselves, besides flipping, of course. Any other roll less than 12, or 14, and they either take casualties or fail to take the hex. However, the Allies are not complaining about their luck this turn; the Axis, as usual, is.

Turn end roll 2: Turn ends.

I hadn't expected that. I was getting all prepared for major naval action in the Eastern Med. Going first will be critical next turn.

[Courtenay]

Here are the destroyed units for the turn:

[Courtenay]

Looking at those destroyed units, who wants to grow up to be a fighter pilot?

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Courtenay

M/A 42 Axis #8:

Ge, Ja Land, It Naval.

The Italians move their last CP to the western Med, escorted by some curisers, and put every battleship they have left in the two box, escorted by the German fighters. Graziani must be saved!

The Italians initiate naval air combat in Cape St. Vincent. Finally the Axis out rolls the Allies, 4 to 5. They find the Allies, the Allies don't find them. The Axis excludes everything but the zero box, giving them four surprise points. They reduce the Allied air-to-air value by 2. The first attack goes in at the German +0, Allies -2. The Allies roll first, and roll a 2. A 2! They shoot down the German fighter, the only 7 point FTR the German have on the map, an FW 190 A2. The Germans respond with a 5, shooting down the front Allied fighter, a 6 point range 5 Spitfire VB. This is not how the Germans hoped things would go. The Axis is very unsure how to proceed. The only FTR they have left is a 4 point twin engine fighter. It will be attacking a -2, with the twin engine shift, while the Allies attack at zero. The Axis decides to fight a round, and see what happens. The Allies roll a 5, shooting down the remain FTR, a Bf 110C. The Axis rolls a 7 in return, which is a good roll, but because of the twin engine shift, has no effect. Seeing a bunch of rolls with the Allies at +2 and the Axis at -4 coming, the Axis decides that this is just not worth it; one or two bombers might get through, only to run into the Allied AA. This was bitterly disappointing result for the Axis. The commander of the lead British air wing gets a VC (posthumous).

Both sides plan to build a lot of fighters this turn.

warspite1

Ouch!

[Courtenay]

The first Yugoslav partisan of the game appears; a 1-1. The Yugoslavs put it in Skopje, where it threatens the resource next to Skopje. I just realized that I could have cut off the Italian resource in Pola. Oh well. I further just realize that the partisan is the wrong nationality; it should be CW and it is French. Oh well, again. The Chinese get a 3-2 partisan; they use it to cut the rail line to the resource in northern China, the Japanese never having retaken all the hexes of the rail line to Peking from the Chinese communist cavalry incursion.

The Russians pick a 5 chit, and put into offense; they move a 2 chit from defense to offense. The Germans get a 1 and 2, and put both in offense, and move a 2 from defense to offense. Neither side is particluarly close to declaring war right now; both sides would be able to do so if it were 1943.

I forgot to record oil usage. Uncertain figures have question marks.

Ge: 3?
It: 2?
Ja: 1

CW: 5
US: 3, with two cruisers and Colorado not reorganized
Fr: 0
Ch, SU: 0

[Courtenay]

In production, the Axis sees how much oil they spent this turn, and decide that they have to save every oil point they get. The Japanese might want to spend some, except that they don't have the the shipping in place to get any of the NEI oil home to Japan. They do get the Burmese oil, and ship it to Bangkok. Indeed, even though the Japanese built a bunch of new convoy points, the Chinese offensive, forcing nothing but land moves, prevented them from getting to sea, so not only is the NEI oil not getting to Japan, neither is one non-oil resource from the southwest. If the Philippine resource touched the South China Sea, all non-oil resources would reach factories, but the Philippine resource doesn't.

The CW, to its immense surprise, is not using one non-oil resource because all of its factories are being run with non-oil resources, and there is one left over that could be shipped. (One Australian can't reach anywhere because of shipping constraints, but the US managed to set up a convoy chain so that one Austrailian resource reached Canada.) The Russians had to spend a saved oil to keep up full production, despite the CW putting a CP in the Persian Gulf to get one of the oil resources there back to the Soviet Union.

The Germans don't scrap the Bf 110C. They can do so when they build a 3 point FTR. The Italians don't scrap anything.
The CW scraps the Canadian Hurricane XII and the South African Spitfire II.
The US scraps the P40-B.

[Courtenay]

Axis production:

Ge: 37+1: 2xMECH, 2xMOT, 4xFTR-2, 4xPi, finish sub (1), repair 2xsub. 1 BP saved
It: 7+1: INF-HQ, NAV-3, no build points saved.
Ja: 19+0: 2xTERR, NAV-4, CVP-1, 3xPi, 2xCP, start sub, repair Nagara, no build points saved.

The Germans build a 9-6 white print and an 8-5 MECH, and a 6-5 and 6-4 MOT. They also build every FTR-2 in their force pool, two 7pt range 6 FW-190 (A2 & A5) and two range 3 BF 109 (6 pt E-7 and 5 pt G-1). The finish a 5 pt 5-5 SUB, and repair both damaged subs, a 3 pt 5-2 and a 2 pt 5-3.

The Italians build Cavallero and the last NAV in their force pool, a 3 pt range 8 SM.84.

The Japanese build the Philippine and Burmese TERR. The Burmese TERR is the only supplied unit they can have in Burma unless they commit an HQ to Burma, which they don't want to do. At some point, the naval war in the Pacific will heat up, and they need an HQ for that. They build their only remaining 4 pt NAV, a 4 pt range 21 transport capable H8K2 float plane, a very good unit, and a 1-4 B5N1 CVP. They start a 3 pt 6-4 SUB, and build 2 more CPs and repair one of their all too many damaged ships.

Here are the Axis reinforcements for M/J 42:

[Courtenay]

Allied production:

Ch: 5+0: INF, MIL. no build points saved.
CW: 33+0: ARM, INF, 3xFTR-2, FTR-3, 3xPi, finish TRS (4), finish sub (1), start 2xSUB, TRS, no build points saved.
Fr: 0+0:
US: 60+8: ARM, MECH, MOT, INF, 3xFTR-2, FTR-3, 2xLND-4, CVP-2, CVP-1, 5xPi, 2xCP, start SUB, Finish AMPH, Princeton, Belleau Wood, SUB (2), Repair HMS Fiji, Kent, Cardiff, HNLMS Sumatra, 1 BP saved.
SU: 31+0: MECH, CAV, 2xMOT, MTN, MIL, FTR-2, LND-2, 3xPi, no BPs saved.

The Chinese rebuild the Kunming MIL, which is not a very good unit but appears in the right place, and a get their 6-3 white print INF.

The CW builds the 9-5 white print CAN ARM, a 5-3 RSA INF, 7 pt Spitfire IX (range 5) and 6 pt Candian Hurricane XII (range 6), and a 4 point range 6 Hurricane IID, which really does not thrill the British, and a 6 point range 12 Mosquito, which does. They finish a 4-4 TRS, start a 4-4 TRS, start a 5 pt 5-2 SUB and a 3 pt 6-4 SUB, and finish a 2 pt 6-3 SUB.

The US builds a 7-6 ARM, an 5-6 MECH, a 5-5 MOT, and a 4-3 INF. These last are going to be garrisons somewhere. The US also builds a a 7 pt range 12 Hellcat, a 6 pt range 5 P51B, a 5 pt range 5 P-39L, which had to be built sometime, and a 5 pt range 12 P-38F. The first US 4 engine bombers are built, a 6 strat B17G and 5 strat B17F. They build a 5-* F4F and a 2-6 TBF-4 CVP. Finally, they start the some CPs, finish a 4-3 AMPH, which is urgently needed in the Pacific, finish two CVLs, and start to clear out the backlog of damaged Allied ships. I am not at all convinced of the value of the US CVLs; I am building them to prove to myself that they are not worth it; next game I will probably only build one or two of them.

At this point I would like to complain about the statistics of the US CVLs. They are speed 5 capacity 1 ships. I firmly believe that they should be speed 6 capacity 2. They have a speed of over 30 knots, which is speed 6, and had 27 aircraft, which is enough for capacity two. Historically, they operated with the US fast carrier fleet; the WiF CVLs are not able to do that.

The Soviets empty their MECH, MTN, and CAV force pools, building an 8-6 white print MECH, a 6-4 white print MTN, and a 4-5 CAV, in addition to 5-5 and 5-4 MOTs and the Astrakhan MIL. They build a 5 pt range 5 MiG-3, and their first LND-2 built in a long time, a 3 pt Su-2. They build an extra pilot; they plan to build some bad planes in their reserve pool just for the garrison value.

Here are the M/J 42 Allied reinforcements

[composer99]

The US alone outproduced the entire Axis (by 3 bp, but still).

Not gonna lie, that's always a bit intimidating thinking about it from an Axis perspective.