Mayhemizer vs AllenK: The rematch

[AllenK]

With rolls of 10 and 4, the northern ground strikes miss.

As does the French 105mm

[AllenK]

The Potez continues to deliver results.

[AllenK]

Zhukov rails to Murmansk.

China after land movement.

[AllenK]

Finland

[AllenK]

The CW moves the two divs in Libya towards Tripoli and juggles the defence along the Nile. The French do what they can to keep the defence going. II Inf disembarks to Suez.

[AllenK]

No combats.

The Soviets rebase a Lnd to Leningrad. CW rebases the Hampden from Suez and Boston from Sardinia to Gabes.

Alexander reorgs a Trans at Gibraltar. Billotte reorgs the 105mm and an Inf.

[Mayhemizer_slith]

J/A 40 Axis 4

Germany declares war on Bulgaria. On a roll 1 US is annoyed.

Does Bulgaria align with CW (or France)? Does Bulgarian INF go to Sofia?

I go with this set up and plan my moves, but if you want it other way I come back and redo.

[Mayhemizer_slith]

ORIGINAL: AllenK

The Finn Fokkers dive into the approaching swarm of Soviet aircraft scattering the escorts to the winds and forcing them to abort back to Leningrad. They regroup and proceed to chase of the bombers as well.

By the way. Finland had 16:1 kill ratio with Fokkers during Winter War (1939-1940). Either plane or pilots are awesome...

[AllenK]

ORIGINAL: Mayhemizer

J/A 40 Axis 4

Germany declares war on Bulgaria. On a roll 1 US is annoyed.

Does Bulgaria align with CW (or France)? Does Bulgarian INF go to Sofia?

I go with this set up and plan my moves, but if you want it other way I come back and redo.

It isn't exactly what you would call the largest of armies! This looks to be a short campaign. I take it Bulgaria can't align with USSR? If not , CW. Sofia is fine for the the Inf.

[Jagdtiger14]

Yeah, it was the Finn pilots. They were working with total crap. The Russians had much better stuff, of course it could be that the Russian pilots sucked, or a combo of the two. But I give it to the Finns since they adopted advanced formations, tactics, hid their aircraft in woods and spread them out...and in general were just sneaky as hell. Too bad they didn't have any Spitfire I's or Me 109 models that were used in the Spanish civil war. Germany could have given them experimental aircraft and used the war as a test bed...like the first versions of the FW190. Hitler should have realized every dead Russian and every destroyed Russian aircraft was to his advantage.

[Centuur]

Actually, the Fokker D.XXI wasn't that bad a plane. It was build to intercept bombers and was quite good doing so. First flight was in 1936, so you could say it was modern for those days.

It could make very short turns, which made it hard to shot down for the Russian fighter planes (and later for the Messerschmidts in the Netherlands). That made escorting bombers difficult, which amounts to the large numbers of Soviet bombers shot down by the Finns during the winter war.

However, the plane lacked the necessary speed and armament to engage the Russian and German fighters.

So I wouldn't say it was "total crap" during the war. Problem was: there were only 36 of them in service at the start of the winterwar in the Finnish airforce.

[Jagdtiger14]

Two things the Fokker D.XXI was better at than the I-16(10)...it had a radio (as opposed to the Russians using hand signals), and it could dive better. The I-16 could climb better and was far more maneuverable. If the Russians had used advanced tactics in general and tactics better suited to the I-16, the air war there would have turned out much differently.

Germany had a bunch (100's...mostly B's) of 109 A,B, and C's they had available after the Spanish civil war...Finn's could have used those to better effect than the Fokker.

[AlbertN]

Too bad they didn't have any Spitfire I's or Me 109 models that were used in the Spanish civil war. Germany could have given them experimental aircraft and used the war as a test bed...like the first versions of the FW190. Hitler should have realized every dead Russian and every destroyed Russian aircraft was to his advantage.

None tends to give the very modern / on test and innovative designs of anything to foreign countries so that they can study them (or even their foes can capture them and study them).

[Mayhemizer_slith]

Germany and Japan land.
Italy would like to do many things: send ships to seas, fly naval air missions, move land units and attack... After long thinking they go with combined. Germany demands some things and Italy must do so if they want to keep receiving resources.

Germany fly 2 FTRs to West Med box 2.
Italy fly NAV to West Med box 2, NAV East Med box 3 and bomber to Red Sea box 1.
Italy sends 2 subs to Cape St. Vincent box 2.

4 sea areas are available for combat and Axis do their best to get a combat.

[Mayhemizer_slith]

Red Sea Axis 9, Allies 6. No combat. Too bad, with some luck CW would have also been OOS in Egypt.

Next East Med. I guess CW is not flying as there are no Axis ships in East Med and those two bombers in Tunisia may have another mission in their mind?

[AllenK]

Sir, you guess correctly.

[Mayhemizer_slith]

East Med: Axis 4, Allies 8.

Only box 0 is selected. Italy use all 8 surprise points to increase own damage.
CA Manchester barely dodges X.
CW chooses target for D.

[AllenK]

York can take the D.

[Mayhemizer_slith]

York is aborted on roll 10. Manchester is aborted also.

Italy aborts from combat.

Does Allies want to stay? And where does aborted ships go?

[AllenK]

Allies will stay. Ships can abort to Malta.