All out war!

[Grotius]

This is really fun! I can't wait to see what happens.

[joshuamnave]

The bad weather was a blessing in disguise for the Axis. Sure, it limited their options on the second impulse of the war, but it also rendered the Allies surprise impulse against the minors nearly moot. The US takes a naval action, everyone else takes a land.

The US flies a Catalina out to Mendocino. It will land in Hawaii at the end of the turn. An infantry division, artillery unit and an AA unit hop on board transports and head for France. They are accompanied by the US Atlantic fleet.

Russia moves into Kaunas. Germany has to move into the Baltics on their impulse in order for Russia to break the pact and declare war. Russia also takes Tabriz and moving along the southern coast of the Caspian, brings 2 infantry corps and 1 division adjacent to Tehran. Contrary to popular belief, Persia can't close the mountains and garrison Tehran prior to the Russians moving in. If they don't garrison Tehran, then closing the mountains is pointless, so the lone Persian unit is in the capitol.

Bad weather saves Romania for now, but the Russians do step over the border in preparation for future attacks. Germany will rail in some support and this will probably be a stalemate line until France has been dealt with.

The British make an auto invasion SE of Bergen. Had the Norwegian mtn unit set up there, they would have made an auto invasion west of Kristiansand. Had the weather been clear, they still would have invaded in the south, but either way they'll get a port. And even without a port, the HQ can land on the beachhead and other units can then land on the HQ.

Russia makes a +7 attack on Tehran. On a 7 or higher they conquer Persia, knocking it out of the game. I see no way for the Axis to prevent this - it's a 79% chance for a first turn knockout of Persia. Italy can't rail straight into Tehran (it's too far, they have to use two rail moves to do it) so I should have just waited an impulse and brought my air into range, but it's moot now.

[joshuamnave]

ORIGINAL: Courtenay

OK, if there is a storm, that is a great reason not to invade.

The only Venezuelan unit is a MIL, which should not come on the map until turn two.

You're correct. I spoke too soon. Regardless, no invasion due to weather.

[joshuamnave]

The fall of Persia radically strengthens the allied position. In my first run at this, I used an old set up rather than starting from scratch. Russia wasn't set up to attack Persia, and by mid '40 they had finally taken Tabriz, but Italy had an HQ and 5 corps + 2 Persian corps defending Tehran. Suez had fallen, and all of the Persian oil was making its way back to Italy. In fact, Italy was giving resources to Germany, who didn't have nearly enough to power all of the factories they gained from their minors. Now not only does Italy lose those resources, Russia gains them and frees up an army group. One possibility would be to head for Iraq, but Italy has plenty of time to garrison that, so it's unlikely.

[yvesp]

ORIGINAL: Zartacla

ORIGINAL: yvesp


In your picture, the CV in box 1 is pretty much useless : I believe it could be more usefull
in the 0 box.

There is also a CV in the 0 box. The CV in the 1 box is extremely useful. At the end of the turn it will stay at sea, starting the following turn in the 0 box. That way if the Axis have the initiative, the convoys are still defended.

Agreed, since your using CV to protect convoys.
I still believe they could be better used.

By the way, your move is defensive, and I think you cannot afford it: you must disable the
minor countries fleet as fast as possible. Port striking the Spanish fleet comes on top :
this doubles up with the fact that either Germnay reacts by moving the fleet out of port,
still risking a naval combat, and renouncing a land action, or acccept the risk of the port
attack.

Port striking from where? The CW carrier planes aren't strong enough to do much, and Gibraltar should fall quickly to the Spanish, backed up by the Italian fleet. And the Spanish are in Italian hands, not German, precisely because Italy is more free to take naval actions.

I did not know the alignments when I wrote this. Historically, Franco would not have aligned with Italy given a choice : he'd have chosen Germany. Anyway, that part of my argument goes away.

But you're wrong to believe that:
1) The planes aren't strong enough to do much
2) Gibraltar is doomed
For the (1), unless the other side has enough surprise to avoid the combat, you may well pass your 6 naval onto the Spanish fleet, which has no serious AA. With no surprise effect, that gives a X on one ship. Depending on luck (surprise) you can do much worse or much better ; if the Spanish fleet is stacked in Sevilia/Barcelona (usualy the case, and the best protection as a major port) you may expect X/2D to 2X/2D with a bit of luck. I'd not discount that. Much more useful than patrolling for hypothetic subs, which a land based bomber can manage not too badly.

Going into Norway was the historical move (which never happens in standard WiF play as it
would require its own special rule) ; but it is bound to fail: the allies have not enough
land power to dislodge the Norvegians mountains units ; furthermore, you're entering winter...
And of course, Norway is not menacing ; cutting the Baltic is worthless: Germany can
perfectly live without the 4 resources from Sweden/Finland. In addition, with the rules
you've chosen, only one division can invade : if it fails, the whole naval move will serve
no purpose (but you can still land 3 of these units in France! I'm unsure about French coop
with the British once the US are in the war, but I believe it is unchanged.)

A british division invading on a suprise impulse is an auto win. And even if that were not true, the units in the North Sea who are intended for follow up landings in Norway could still land in France following a failed invasion of Norway. Taking out Norway makes it much easier to secure Murmansk convoys - remember the choice isn't between leaving Norway neutral or attacking, Norway is now in the war as a German ally. And there's no need to attack the Norwegians in the mountains. And yes, the CW still needs HQ support to enter France. The US does not.

Yes, my fault: did not notice this was a surprise impulse. It may work and annoy somewhat Germany.

So, as the allies, I would use all available air naval power to clean up the Atlantic
(including the US Pacific naval forces)

That's a bit tricky since the Panama canal is closed to the US Pacific fleet.

[>:] yes! I realized that after writing it...

; prepare division level invasions against targets
that have no defenses (at +21) so as to conquer territories that border the Atlantic
(e.g. Netherland Guyana.)

How is Dutch Guyana more strategically important than Norway? I don't understand why you would ignore Norway but take out Dutch Guyana. And the +21 thing applies to Norway too, so no failed invasion.

That was just an exemple. There is nothing that prevents you from preparing several invasions at once. Indeed, this is what you should do before you see territorials spring up : after, it will be much more difficult than just walking into an empty capital city.

; I'd leave one convoy in each med area (east/west) to prevent
easy Italian invasions (e.g. Cyprus, but later Egypt)

The convoy doesn't prevent an Italian invasion of Cyprus. Italy invaded Cyprus on the surprise impulse, when it was in supply, and it was still a +21 attack. Once Spain is an active Italian minor, the UK has no hope of maintaining convoys in the Med.

Did not realize this was done in the surprise impulse. But this still stands to prevent help coming from the sea to the Türkish troops. As for the presence or absence of Spain, I fail to see how this makes a difference : that's just a bunch of cruisers to deal with. By the way, where did Spain place their ships ? in the Mediterranean or on the Atlantic ?

The theme is interesting, but the allies will rout very fast. I would find it more interesting
if you'd keep the allies their natural allies at least, these countries that either have an
ongoing trade agreement (Persia, Venezuela), and these that can be aligned (Brazil, Mexico,
Panama.) Poland should not automatically fall.
In your setup, France should fall within 3 turns, or at least be seriously invaded from all
sides. Russia will follow very fast with a devastating "Barbarossa 40" (but as a matter of
fact, I'd make it a "Barbarossa 39" and just enter Russia after the fall of Poland.) Egypt
should then fall very fast (you should be able to rail two German corps to help the Türks.)
Gibraltar, well, it's a matter of luck how long it stands. With a crippled Commonwealth which
will have a pathetic production (few resources), that leaves only the USA.

It leaves a US with 50 BP's in 39, going up to over 60 in Sep/Oct '40. That's more than the combined Axis total. Even with just convoys running to the US/Canada, the UK gets double digit BP's. Russia also gets an early bump, assuming the Axis moves in to Russia. Taking France out that quickly, in the winter, with US units coming in, isn't as easy as you seem to think. In Sep/Oct, there will be 2 US artillery units. In Nov/Dec, there will be at minimum 1 Inf Corps, and it goes up from there. The US units are stronger than the CW units they are replacing and have much greater freedom of deployment. Germany can't declare Vichy, and my house rule makes it tough to force a French surrender - probably impossible by your timeline. And even if France were to last only 3 turns, you would still have a D-Day size American force in France by early '41. The only thing slowing down an invasion will be Amphibs.

Germany could ignore France and hit Russia in 39, but that gives the US free reign to move into France for a year, and then Germany is toast. To hit France, Germany really needs 2 of their 3 initial HQ's, which greatly limits their options in Russia.

Yes, the dynamic of it is interesting. I don't think France will surender anytime soon under you rules. But I see metropolitan France conquered very fast. You forget that:
Germany gains 10 Factories (i.e. ~ +3 inf per turn)
Italy gains 8 Factories (i.e. ~ +2 inf per turn)
Both have many minor countries that may immediately send troops on the frontline: the axis has an initial overwhelming advantage in troop number, which are all going to hit France (because that's where things happen.) All this should simply overwhelm France which simply should not be able to garrison itself, even with US help, and will be confronted with a huge front line.

Turkey can attack Syria and close on Egypt.
Persia is not at risk as it has time to close the mountains.

Yes, Italy should take out Syria, Palestine, Trans Jordan and Egypt without too much trouble. Persia has only 2 small units and Russia will attack in '39 before Italy can rail in reinforcements. They may not take Persia out, but they can also block the mountains and protect the oilfields.

Blocking the whole Caucasus will likely be more than the USSR can afford, given that it'll be attacked from the north, west and south. But you're right: the oilfields are too important.

The Japanese should consider the immediate invasion of Honolulu which might be undefended
and easily put OoS. I'd consider rebasing half the Japanese fleet to Panama, just to give
the allies something to ponder : but the problem would be keeping it in supply.

Immediate is a bit of a stretch. It would take a minimum of two turns. The moment a Japanese division or marine unit lands in Truk or Kwajalein with a naval unit close enough to carry them to Pearl where they can invade from the 3 box, the US will garrison it. And even if not, good luck keeping an invading force in supply. The US fleet is stronger and will grow faster. The Japanese must devote a chunk of their fleet to protecting their convoys from NEI, and in your scenario must also protect the supply line to Hawaii. And putting their fleet in Panama is just begging for it to be port struck. Not to mention Panama is a German ally and the Japanese can't base their fleet there.

No. You load two divisions from, say, Tokyo, in a combined move on fast cruisers which end up in the three box in a sea area adjacent to Honolulu. Bring some more for naval support.

You also need to cut the flow of supplies and that is hardly automatic and may require your second naval move.

That ends up in a combat that is not an automatic win, but can be 3-1 or even better. But it is definitely worth trying. Afterward, you bring in a white print unit and leave a div. It would take some time and energy to reconquer, even unsupplied and disorganized. See my latest AAR on the first attempt to reconquer Rabaul...

The Japanese might even rebase most of their fleet there : the US fleet is no match to the Japanese carrier force at that point.

[joshuamnave]

The Spanish fleet is in port in the Med at setup. The Spanish fighter is stacked with them, which won't matter on the surprise impulse but after that will cut down on losses. If the Allies set up land based air in range or move carriers to Gibraltar, I'll put some Italian fighters in interception range as well.

It's true that Germany and Italy gain a lot of factories. But they don't gain the resources to power them all, and they don't gain nearly enough to make up for the 30 point increase in US builds. Remember that Germany loses the 7 resources from Russia.

Germany doesn't need the Med clear to send supply or troops to Turkey. They do need 1 Axis CP in the eastern med to use the straight crossing, but it doesn't make any difference at all whether or not there is an allied CP there. The fall of spain matters because it likely means the fall of Gibraltar. Here's the board at the start of the Axis turn following the activation of all the minors:

[joshuamnave]

Axis third impulse, good weather in the north temperate. It's raining in the N Monsoon and Arctic. All Axis powers take a land action.

Italy rails their AA unit to Bucharest to help against Soviet strat bombings of Ploesti. It won't do much, likely knocking 1-2 points off every strat attack, but that can add up pretty fast. Two German corps join the Italians in Bucharest. Russia has almost no chance of knocking Romania out of the war, but they will be able to prevent an Axis advance along that front for a while. Germany's third rail move is an infantry corps to Oslo.

Japan advances in northern China

[joshuamnave]

And toward Vladivostok

[joshuamnave]

On the African front, Belgians advance out of the Belgian Congo into Leopoldville, conquering the Middle Congo. The Liberians, slowed by rain, move into Sierra Leone stopping one hex from Freetown. Of more interest, Germany moves through Belgium and Switzerland, ready to begin the assault on France. The HQ's hold back to reorganize the reserves.

This is a change from my first run through, where I had been set up to take out Poland. Even though Poland capitulated, it left the German army out of position for a Sep/Oct attack on France. With this setup, France may indeed fall too quickly for the Americans to pack in some units. If that happens, the next time I try this I'll enforce a requirement to setup a certain number of units on the Polish border.

[Courtenay]

Which Axis countries aligned which minors? This particularly makes a difference for those countries bordering Russia, as Germany and Russia aren't at war.

[joshuamnave]

ORIGINAL: Courtenay

Which Axis countries aligned which minors? This particularly makes a difference for those countries bordering Russia, as Germany and Russia aren't at war.

Scroll up to post 12. Germany and Russia will be at war momentarily, however.

[joshuamnave]

In the east, Germany moves one unit into the Baltic states. This isn't done for any strategic or tactical purpose - it's just to allow Russia to break the pact and declare war. Turkey pushes south into Syria. Sweden moves an HQ and 2 corps, including their Mtn corps, into Norway.

Spanish troops occupy Bordeaux and most of the southern French coastline. Italian units advance on Tunis and cross into Egpyt, while the Saudi cavalry unit runs through Trans Jordan and Palestine. French Somalia is overrun. Next turn, Italy will take Kenya and British Somalia as well. Brazil marches into French Guyana. This, along with most of the Africa campaign, is primarily cosmetic. There are no resources at stake, no VP hexes, but it does deny the allies some ports.

Japan launches an invasion NW of Luzon. It's raining in the Philippines but with 10 factors of Marines and a bunch of naval bombardment and some carrier based ground support, it's still a strong attack. Germany makes 3 attacks. The attack on Lille is the riskiest, but with Belgians there to soak up losses I figure it's an acceptable risk.

[joshuamnave]

Of course the most significant attack of the impulse is a Spanish assault on Gibraltar, backed up by 2 invading Italian divisions. After an air to air combat in which the badly outgunned French manage to shoot down two german planes and abort another while not suffering so much as a single abort of their own, this is how it looks:

[joshuamnave]

The most important attack is Girbraltar of course, where the Axis have a slightly better than 72% chance of clearing the hex. Did it work?

Before I answer that, I'd like to talk for a minute about something I see in a lot of AAR's... there seems to be a fixation with getting a +10 or higher before making attacks. But against a single unit in a tough hex, I'll take a +5 all day long assuming I have 2 or more cheap units to take losses. Against a 2 unit stack, +7 is sufficient so long as you're willing to accept losses. This comes up mostly in China where Japan must either accept a stalemate line or grind the Chinese down by making a series of low to medium odds attacks, rebuilding their losses faster than the Chinese can.

At any rate, the dice were kind, providing overkill, and Gibraltar falls.

[joshuamnave]

Germany takes Lille on a roll of 13, suffering no losses but killing no Frenchies who retreated. The French chose a blitz because the chances were so high of killing a German unit, and the first loss would have to be a 7 factor MOT. That said, the French are also happy to hold on to their units right now, and disorganizing the Germans is a consolation prize.

Japan doesn't roll quite so well, but still makes it ashore in the Philippines.

[joshuamnave]

Despite losing the marines in the Philippines, it was overall a good turn for the Axis. Japan took Chengchow, the Axis cleared the southern Maginot and with a blitz attack west of the Maginot managed to isolate the rest of the line. Overall my rolls were average, but I did roll well where I needed to, and rolled poorly where it wasn't as significant. The loss of two German planes is probably more painful right now than the Japanese marine corps.

Here's the situation in France. It's looking bad for the allies right now.

[joshuamnave]

Over to the Allies. Russia breaks the pact with Germany and declares war. The only country not in the war now is Nepal who has no units and no strategic value. Keeping them neutral avoids a bug that would otherwise make me reload the game at least once per turn (and sometimes once per impulse).

Russia drops her reserves and the allies all take land actions. Goals for the turn include landing troops in Norway, getting the US troops all ashore in NW France, and pushing into northern Mexico.

Russian strat bombers get lost on the way to Ploesti, and by the time they arrive have time for just one pass, taking out a single oil. More important than it sounds, since Germany is currently resource starved. With no German units inside Russia yet, they can't start moving factories. The Finns foolishly setup without a garrison in Petsamo, so the Russians rail a unit up to Murmansk to deny those resources to Germany. It will take a while to root them out since Petsamo isn't on a rail line and German or Scandinavian units will have to move through marshes to get there.

A Russian division overruns the Latvian convoy point, forcing it to flee past a soviet submarine. The soviets decline to intercept, not out of any love for the Latvians but because a failed intercept role on a unit that is aborting from combat or re-basing following an overrun will crash the game. This puts a serious damper on an important aspect of the naval war and really needs to be fixed.

Also, not sure if this is a multiple states of war bug or not - Russia was already at war with Latvia, having declared war on them the previous impulse. Latvia aligned to Germany. On this impulse, Russia declared war on Germany. On which impulse should the Russians have a suprise impulse against Latvia? I ask because when they overran the convoy, they got to roll for a chance to capture or sink it, which should only have happened if they had surprise, and I don't think they should have.

Now Russia must decide what to do with her units in Persia. Here are the options as I see it:
1) Leave a garrison in Tehran and Tabriz. These can be taken out but only with a sustained Axis effort and reinforcements can be summoned if needed. That protects that border for a while, but Italy doesn't really need to recapture Persia - just taking the oil fields in the south is a win for the Axis.

2) Garrison the oil fields also. In order to do that, Russia will have to also leave an HQ in Persia to keep the garrison in supply, otherwise they're easy targets.

3) Push on into Iraq before the Axis can substantially reinforce it. Does even more to protect the oil fields, gains even more resources, but weakens the Russian defenses against Germany, particularly if France goes down fast.

4) Pull out of Persia, leaving a defense behind the river on the Persian border, conceding that Italy will retake it at some point relatively soon.

For now I'm going with option 3, but I'm interested in hearing what others think about the situation.

Meanwhile France turtles up, trying to deny Germany any 3 hex attacks. They know they can't hold out for long against the overwhelming German forces, but even if Paris falls, they can hold out long enough for the Americans to establish a large enough presence in France to tie up the German units who would rather be heading East. Without Vichy or a French surrender, the Axis also lose the use of Paris as a secondary supply source, which will tie up more HQ units slowing any advance into Russia.

In Norway, Gort comes ashore with 3 corps. A bomber and a fighter land in Bergen.

The turn does not end, and Germany gets another fine weather impulse in the N Temperate. Germany and Japan take land actions, Italy takes a Naval. Without any CW convoys to hunt, most of the minors outside of Europe aren't all that useful, but a few of them can start rebasing their fleets to the pacific by port hopping. Plus Italy wants to transport a Mech down to eastern Libya to help take out Egypt.

For example, two of the Argentinian ships can sail all the way to the mozambique channel. Before long, they'll be defending Japanese convoys in the Pacific, or escorting Italian supply ships going around Saudi Arabia.

Germany would like to rail another unit into Norway, but can't. Only one unit per turn can rail across a straight, and they used their one the previous impulse. So instead they use their rail moves to bring the Yugoslavian HQ into eastern Poland along with two Yugo inf corps. This isn't a force capable of meeting a defensive position head on, but they are pests that Russia can't just ignore.

Japan tries to encircle a Chinese nuisance unit east of Nanyang, but can't put it out of supply. Unless Japan gets a double turn, the Chinese will just pull back into the mountains, making Japan waste valuable time pursuing it, or leaving it free to cut rail lines and cause other mischief. Japan also lines up an attack on Vladivostok, and Yamamoto lands in the Philippines. Note that only one of Japan's HQ's is currently in China, but hopefully that will change soon.

Rather than let the Chinese unit escape further into the Mtns, Japan takes a +9 attack. The units in Vladivostok are both disorganized (a reserve unit and a unit that was railed in) so Japan figures they're not going to to do better for a while. Germany, who has only recently begun playing with artillery units, forgot to account for the French artillery unit when planning attacks so is making a blitz attack at worse odds than were originaly anticipated.

[joshuamnave]

And ouch. A 7 on the blitz attack shatters both French units, but forces the Axis to take the big Mot corps as a loss. On the plus side, the Germans overrun the offending artillery unit on the breakthrough. The noose is tightening fast.

Double ouch - the Japanese lose a Manchurian and a 4-3 Inf Corps taking out the Chinese pest. Losses are starting to mount for Japan.

And triple ouch... the Japanese trade the Tokyo militia for the Vladivostok militia, and Vladivostok holds, although Japan occupies the adjacent resource and Russia won't be able to produce there.

The turn doesn't end. Any time the status bar reads "Sep/Oct 1939 Allied #11" you know things can't be good for the allies. Passing becomes a serious option here, which would end the turn on a 7 or less. Without passing, it ends on a 5. But Russia wants to push into Iraq, the UK wants to push into Norway, the US wants to get their units to the front lines so on we go. Land actions all around.

British air flying out of Bergen successfully strat bomb Gothenburg, and Russian air takes another shot at Ploesti, hitting the other 2 oil. The turn mercifully ends on a 4.

Here's the French position. Normally they would be doomed, but remember - no Vichy, and my house rules for automatic surrender mean that Germany is going to have to push the Americans out along with finishing up the conquest of North Africa and the Middle East.

[joshuamnave]

An expensive turn for Japan. The German air losses aren't fantastic either. Was it worth it?

[joshuamnave]

Production
Germany, 20 BP's, 2 oil (the strat bombing in Ploesti hurt)
Italy, 6 BP's, 1 oil
Japan, 11 BP's, 4 oil
China, 5 BP's, no oil
UK, 6 BP's, 1 oil Yes, not routing convoys around Africa seriously cut into their BP allotment. However had the convoys been in place, the link would almost certainly have been severed, probably in multiple places. Any gain in production would have been offset by the cost of rebuilding convoys. Starting next turn, they'll have access to some oil from the US as well as some BP's.
France, 3 BP's, no oil
US, 50 BP's, 16 oil
USSR, 14 BP's, 9 oil. That's a blunder. One Turkish corps is inside the Soviet Union. Didn't mean to do that.

Total Axis BP's, 37, with 7 oil. US BP's, 50 with 16 oil.

One more balancing mechanism I decided to employ on my first playthrough of this scenario - the Axis add all minor units to their force pool. In some cases that's great, but in others... some units are shall we say less useful.

Germany - HQA, Pilot, Lnd2, Ftr2, 2 Inf
Italy - Pilot, SCS repair, Ftr2
Japan - Pilot, 2 CP's, Shokaku (2nd), CVP, 2 MIL
China - Pilot, Ftr, Cav Div
CW - Pilot, 2 CVP, scs Repair
France - AT Believe it or not, France has no Inf in their force pool. All the infantry that Germany tagged was shattered or retreated.
US - 3 Pilots, 2 CVP, 1 LND 3, Wyoming, 3 CP's, Trans (1st), Amphib (1st), Terr, 4 MIL, 1 Arm, Mtn, 2 Inf, Inf div
Russia - Pilot, LND 4, Arm, Mil