Bob Flemin's MWIF AARse V - Fat AARse

[warspite1]

Jul//Aug 1940
Impulse: 3

Don't laugh, but the useless Japanese bomber force take to the skies to try and ground strike the Chinese units in sining.

This should be good....

....or a waste of time... [:D]

[brian brian]

What I don't understand in that picture is why the program drew an arrow from the BEF hex onto the French hex.



A good Allied player will now immediately pick up the BEF and deposit at least Gort in Bordeaux all in one impulse in this situation.

The German ART units are ideal for Ground Strikes on British forces - Ground Strikes that the RAF can't contest.

Rundstedt was right about Dunkirk and perhaps this cost Hitler a chance at Suez a year later.

[warspite1]

Jul//Aug 1940
Impulse: 3

Again just one attack. This time against Bordeaux. The odds are 5:1 no modifiers on the Assault Table. The French could bring in a couple of fighters and have a +1 advantage - so the Germans leave it at that.

Ouch - its a 2. Bordeaux falls, but the Germans lose an AT unit in securing the port.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: brian brian

What I don't understand in that picture is why the program drew an arrow from the BEF hex onto the French hex.



A good Allied player will now immediately pick up the BEF and deposit at least Gort in Bordeaux all in one impulse in this situation.

The German ART units are ideal for Ground Strikes on British forces - Ground Strikes that the RAF can't contest.

Rundstedt was right about Dunkirk and perhaps this cost Hitler a chance at Suez a year later.

warspite1

No - fortunately the BEF factors did not join in the attack - maybe the arrow reflected the warmth and respect with which the British and French hold each other?? [:D]

I have the BEF on TRS to put into Bayonne this impulse.

Yes - I must get used to using ART in ground strike mode.

I do not think that anything that happened at Dunkirk affected Suez. The problem was not so much the defenders - of which there were sufficient - it was more that the Germans could not field more than a couple of divisions and support troops in the desert because of supply and logistics.

[brian brian]

Yeah, all might have beens. For example, if the Panzers overran the beaches of Dunkirk and bagged 100 or 200K British troops, the British might not have felt they had the basic manpower to intervene in Greece or green-light O'Connors offensive into Libya and then Rommel might have been used to seize Tula instead, pushing the tottering Communist house of cards over at last. Though adding a Panzer and motorized division to Barbarossa might not have made as much difference as Fliegerkorps X might have.

My thought on Suez would have been a might-have-been if Rommel landed in an Italian Tobruk and broken a very thin Western Desert Force east of Alexandria. But I'd also think the Royal Navy could have likely prevented that on logistics issues as well.



You may be wondering how to 'best' play the Allies here, in terms of this being a solitaire game. Basically, a German refusal to declare Vichy means simply that they will be attacking Spain and then the Allies need to hold the Garonne line with all available force immediately. In your game not having a unit in Paris could have been an Axis attempt at subterfuge on that perhaps, but as Composer99 noted, in a table top game the unit requirement could sometimes be forgotten or deliberately Mulliganed. I've never thought about the requirement before, that's for sure.

In general though, a good defense of France prepares for this eventuality, in part with a save-the-army retreat once the Germans have multiple hexes on Paris, particularly when the Germans have good fall weather in 1939 or good weather in March/April 40. The French can rail a factory or two to Bordeaux and the BEF can pivot there (possibly by adding Wavell if the Italians are nice and quiet) once the Somme front is broken as it always eventually is. The French can keep building infantry and even Artillery until the end, rather than cheese-ball loaning their BPs to the CW. CW loans to France in the 2nd and 3rd turns of the game can also create a very tough defense in front of the Spanish border, which is really a forward defense of Gibraltar ultimately.

[Centuur]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

Jul//Aug 1940
Impulse: Declare War

That is interesting. The Germans can break the pact with the Soviets. Presumably this is something to do with Finland?

Yes the garrison has fallen to 1 - good job the Germans have no intention of declaring war...

Why not? It's 1940 and France is down. DoW the USSR and start fighting. The USSR army is out of position and you can align the Rumanians and grab all kind of nice cities using those INF. Or is there a token defense somewhere along the border? Sure, you won't be able to do a lot of damage to the USSR, but it's to good an opportunity to go to waste, IMHO. I would really think this over and look at the maps...

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Centuur

ORIGINAL: warspite1

Jul//Aug 1940
Impulse: Declare War

That is interesting. The Germans can break the pact with the Soviets. Presumably this is something to do with Finland?

Yes the garrison has fallen to 1 - good job the Germans have no intention of declaring war...

Why not? It's 1940 and France is down. DoW the USSR and start fighting. The USSR army is out of position and you can align the Rumanians and grab all kind of nice cities using those INF. Or is there a token defense somewhere along the border? Sure, you won't be able to do a lot of damage to the USSR, but it's to good an opportunity to go to waste, IMHO. I would really think this over and look at the maps...

warspite1

Why not? DoW and start fighting? Well there are a few issues:

- Yes the Soviet army is out of position - but so is the Wehrmacht - and the Soviets are closer to being in position.
- I have not one tank, not one aircraft (fighter or bomber) or so much as one HQ in the east. One Mechanised corps and a white print 7-4 infantry are the heaviest units currently in Poland.
- Even if I did this at the start of Jul/Aug, I would be spending the rest of whatever summer is left, moving units as quickly as I could east - not wanting to rail too many in case the turn is long, but not wanting to rely on normal movement in case the turn is short.
- No surprise turn
- No co-ordinated attack, just throwing units piecemeal as they arrive in the east.
- No chance to attack and conquer Yugoslavia

Mmmm.. you may be right, but from where I am sitting I do not see the appeal.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: brian brian

Yeah, all might have beens. For example, if the Panzers overran the beaches of Dunkirk and bagged 100 or 200K British troops, the British might not have felt they had the basic manpower to intervene in Greece or green-light O'Connors offensive into Libya and then Rommel might have been used to seize Tula instead, pushing the tottering Communist house of cards over at last. Though adding a Panzer and motorized division to Barbarossa might not have made as much difference as Fliegerkorps X might have.

My thought on Suez would have been a might-have-been if Rommel landed in an Italian Tobruk and broken a very thin Western Desert Force east of Alexandria. But I'd also think the Royal Navy could have likely prevented that on logistics issues as well.



You may be wondering how to 'best' play the Allies here, in terms of this being a solitaire game. Basically, a German refusal to declare Vichy means simply that they will be attacking Spain and then the Allies need to hold the Garonne line with all available force immediately. In your game not having a unit in Paris could have been an Axis attempt at subterfuge on that perhaps, but as Composer99 noted, in a table top game the unit requirement could sometimes be forgotten or deliberately Mulliganed. I've never thought about the requirement before, that's for sure.

In general though, a good defense of France prepares for this eventuality, in part with a save-the-army retreat once the Germans have multiple hexes on Paris, particularly when the Germans have good fall weather in 1939 or good weather in March/April 40. The French can rail a factory or two to Bordeaux and the BEF can pivot there (possibly by adding Wavell if the Italians are nice and quiet) once the Somme front is broken as it always eventually is. The French can keep building infantry and even Artillery until the end, rather than cheese-ball loaning their BPs to the CW. CW loans to France in the 2nd and 3rd turns of the game can also create a very tough defense in front of the Spanish border, which is really a forward defense of Gibraltar ultimately.

warspite1

Sadly its all a bit late for that [:(]. The problem with the BEF and Bayonne of course is that I cannot land more than Gort - because of FTC [:@] - didn't think of that. Gort landing on his own is just asking to be summarily ejected the following impulse. There is a French infantry arriving as a reinforcement next turn, otherwise its all looking a bit sparse for the French in terms of help...

[Courtenay]

ORIGINAL: brian brian
The French can rail a factory or two to Bordeaux and the BEF can pivot there (possibly by adding Wavell if the Italians are nice and quiet) once the Somme front is broken as it always eventually is.

Are you railing the factories to Bordeaux because you expect to use them? They won't affect the conquest of France:

To conquer any other home country [other than Italy, that is], you must control its capital plus every printed factory hex in that home country. You do not need to control a hex that only contains factories that were moved, or built, there.

[composer99]

That's correct, you rail factories to Bordeaux and the BEF sits there. It won't stop the conquest of France, but if they hold on to the city the factories can come in handy.

[brian brian]

yeah it's gamey as can be but if French factories are in Bordeaux, they can create enough BP to put an INF a turn on the spiral … which then might be able to reinforce the likely siege warfare in Lyon or Toulouse at some point after the Germans botch an attack. Sure, the Germans can put an end to that, but it becomes one more thing on their to-do list when they would rather be breaking through the Pyrenees and the Ebro. With the Defensive Shore Bombardment optional in play the Germans have to really work at taking Atlantic coastal hexes. If there are enough Allied hold-out pockets around France putting ZoC on the Germans the Partisans might even appear to bite them somewhere, with plenty of woods to hang out in, or the good old Central Massif.

Rouen can also do the same thing if the remains of the Flanders BEF hole up there. (They can't survive long at all on the beaches, as warspite1 realized here.) Perhaps the shiny new Whirlwind the British didn't actually want to deploy can fly cover over it….or if the Axis attack late enough in a turn, a canny Brit might be able to call a Blitz combat and retreat to Le Havre for extraction at the start of the next turn. Or just lose two MIL there … the best Allied strategy is to leave cheap Left Behind forces wherever they can use tough terrain to slow the Germans, again particularly with DSB in play. The units get killed and the real Allies would rarely do such a thing, but in WiF you command cardboard so you can behave badly running the Allies.

Toulouse is one of the three toughest hexes in the game to take but it helps tremendously if the Allies prepare a defense. Lyon is not an easy hex either, though the Axis can get a lot more surface area to squeeze it.

But a big key in a crumbling France becomes holding any coastal city, so the French Navy can continue to draw supply for the struggle in the Med.


Yes the FTC rules make CW commitment into mainland France tricky. Which is why the CW usually builds the Alexander HQ in J/F 40 even if some lucky U-Boats might make it the only unit that can be built. Some aggressive BEF commanders might even pay the 3 extra BP to build it on the first turn for arrival in M/J 40.

I've been listening to these Scots Lawn Care commercials all summer listening to baseball games. This guy with a probably faux Scottish accent comes on and says "Fight the Germans, fight them." Err, well, or maybe something actually about feeding your lawn, but that's what I hear when he says it.

[warspite1]

Jul//Aug 1940
Impulse: 4

Well having totally ballsed up my plan to get BEF units to Bayonne (FTC rules), there is nothing I can do to prevent the Germans taking that port next impulse.

Having totally mucked up here, the CW bring the "Queens" back from Canada. I am going to need all the lift available to support Spain and Gibraltar....

[warspite1]

Jul//Aug 1940
Impulse: 5

Fed up with the rubbish tactical bombers, the Imperial Japanese Army bring an artillery into the mix. This manages to ground strike one of the Communist defenders of Sining. Now, armed with a +1 and Yamamoto's HQ Support, the IJA take a deep breath and go for it...

[warspite1]

Jul//Aug 1940
Impulse: 5

The HQ Support takes the odds up to 2:1 +1 on the Assault table....

...its a 9(10)! the IJA have effectively swept the Communists from the game.

[warspite1]

Jul//Aug 1940
Impulse: 6

The Allies try and end the turn early - only the Soviets move. It fails and the turn continues.

[warspite1]

Jul//Aug 1940
Impulse: 7

The Germans attempt to ground strike the French defenders of Toulouse. Unsurprisingly, both side fly all available fighters to the hex. The Germans only have a +1/-1 advantage....

[warspite1]

Jul//Aug 1940
Impulse: 7

The Allies will throw first.

Round 1

12 - AC The French clear through the lower value Stuka
10 - DC Effectively No Effect

Round 2

7 - DA The German must abort their front fighter or bomber... They take a chance and abort the Bf-109
12 - AC No Effect again....

The removal of the German fighter does not affect the odds.

Round 3

11 - DC Disaster, the second Stuka is cleared through
4 - AX Just to double the pain, the French lose their best fighter (pilot survives)

[warspite1]

Jul//Aug 1940
Impulse: 7

The two Ju-87 make short work of the French defenders....

[warspite1]

Jul//Aug 1940
Impulse: 7

And so we come to the most important attack of the game to-date; Toulouse!

HQ Support from Guderian and a Ju-88 have brought the odds up to 3:1, but with a +3 modifier on the Assault Table....

....10! in the last AARse it seemed that 5 or 6 was the computer's favoured land combat throw, but in this game there has been more than a fair share of 9's and 10's...

Toulouse is no more - the gateway to Spain has been opened...

The last two French fighters are overrun too.

[warspite1]

Jul//Aug 1940
Impulse: 7

Once again the Allies pass and this time the turn ends - the Germans won't get a crack at Spain this turn.