Cohen vs Enrico - AAR nr.4 (Solitaire from 2# Impulse - Jul Aug 1943)

[AlbertN]

Jul / Aug 1942 - US fends off Japanese interception force

On the small scale, as the US was shipping new troops to Pago Pago, or even Fiji maybe, a squadron of 5 Japanese cruisers was sent to intercept these troop carriers.

The US had also long range patrols in the sea (Ships in the 4 sea box) which repeatedly found the Japanese cruisers.
They were small affairs, but in the end the Japanese got more damaged cruisers; and both sides lost a cruiser for good.

Mostly, the Japanese never got to find the troop convoys, which means the US is able to extert more pressure in the southern sector - the next turn.

[AlbertN]

Jul / Aug 1942 - Foothold in Festung Europe.

The W.Allies tried their luck, again.

This time not in France but in Spain - or better Portugal.
Two landings at once admittedly, in adjacent hexes to support each other; and with Alexander HQ to function as port facility for more troops.

The US landing was a failure - performed in "economy" of troops it ended up in a disaster.
Alexander on the other hand - adding its support event to be more sure of making it - succeeds to land closeby Lisbon!

The Axis scrambles forces at the quickest pace they can, and then try to counterattack with a mix of Italians and Germans.
This time it's "Il Duce" to provide tankettes for the blitz.

Though the W.Allies, seeing the tanks approaching dispatch quickly a bomber they rebased there. It's a 3 Air Factor bomber, and the only fighter in range for Lisbon (Where there are 3 Axis ground units) is an old Macchi200 with 4 Air Factor.
Nonetheless the Italian pilots get their job done and shoot the US bombers down.

Alas (for the Axis) once the ground attack comes, it does not provide the wished results and all of the Axis assailants are disorganized after the inconclusive attempt to push back into the sea the invaders.

______________________________

Over the skies of Lille the RAF and the Luftwaffe fought.
The Luftwaffe shown initial superiority, cracking through the best Spitfires of the escorts; and then aborted the bomber as well. (My friend was not really believing in his second Spitfire, rolling on the -2 table) But as the last Allied roll happened, the old Spitfire smashed through the FW190.

[AlbertN]

Jul / Aug 1942 - Ostfront

The Germans attack, attack and they do it relentlessly.

Once bested the first, organized defence, it seems to turn into a walk in the park. - I blame mainly the absence of Soviet Airplanes to make it so easy, even had quite a debate with my friend on the topic, but he's the Soviet in this game! -

The Luftwaffe can operate pratically undisturbed, the only real limit is the one of Air Actions the Germans can take per impulse. An -extremely- limiting factor, especially considering now the Axis has to move planes around in the West too.

Germany started the turn with an O-Chit for Supercombined, to move everything in place. The Soviets run, but in the while a few units get disrupted by the long range bombers.

The Soviets lose units as they withdraw. And without fighters there is the eternal dilemma. A plain hex ... should I put in there 2 armoured units for the -4? But that would also be a bomber magnet ...

Each impulse their forces shrunk, and to defend their own homeland (and mostly their own units as they withdraw toward the Urals) is turning harder and harder.

[AlbertN]

Jul / Aug - Done and dusted, and lots of tanks smoldering in the steppes.

The end of July and August arrived, quite prematurely (Turn ended when the roll needed was 3. And the Axis would have dearly liked one extra impulse.).

Losses are atrocious, for the Soviet especially - but so for the Germans who used 2 O-Chits, exhausting their reserves of Offensive meanwhile the Soviets still retain theirs.

[AlbertN]

Jul / Aug 1942 - The Largest Tank Battle in WW2 (For now!)

Steppes east of Saratov.

The Germans pinched the flanks of the retreating Soviet Army, until Stalin, after his failed travel back in time, has safely returned to command his forces from the far and distant Siberia. He remembers to Zhukov, thundering from his phone:

"Haven't you forgotten what I said? There's nothing beyond the Volga! Push these Nazis back into their homeland."

So Zhukov obeyed, and marshalled the remaining Soviet armoured forces into a grand attack against the German spearhead. (The 8-5 Mech Hex you see in the screenshot slightly above)

The Luftwaffe was too far to provide assistance, and the Soviets destroyed the Germans, utterly. Zhukov exhausted his leadership ability in the process (HQ support - this happened in Allied Impulse #4).

(On a relevant note - the 4-5 MOT unit of the Soviets is meant to be in a different hex, instead of redoing the whole movement phase we just gave for granted it was there, covering the flank of the Soviets from being hammered from the East too.)

Von Manstein tried to show his specialty, the backhand blow. (O-Chit fired - Screenshot below).
The Germans mass their panzers remaining in the sector, still a total of 8 Corps including the 2 HQs, and attack fiercely.
And both Von Manstein and Von Rundstedt spend their HQ support - the combats are +13 each. But unluck strikes Von Manstein (Rolled only a 6 there, and amazingly it is 1 loss for me, a Mechanized corp whole!) for a shatter result.
Von Rundstedt is more lucky, and manages in its river crossing with no losses.
The Luftwaffe promptly send a fighter and 3 Stukas in the zone, just in case. That reveals providential.

That severs the supply of the Soviets. But their rearguard, a MIL unit comes by and covers the ZOC - letting Zhukov restore the supply.
The Soviets launch two more dire attacks, one against the lonely Von Manstein. It costs them 2 MECH units, whereas the Luftwaffe intervenes and Von Manstein pratically doubles his defending worth.
The same is for the pointe of the Germans, a lonely tank that is doubled. The Soviets lose a MOT unit (as the Germans elected Blitz combat) and are disrupted alltogether.

Disaster looms for the Soviets, with all units in a precarious supply situation - and ontop of that, disrupted.

BUT ... the turn ends!

Now all is into the initiative roll - and since Jul / Aug was rerolled, the Allies started first and ended the turn, now the Initiative track is into the middle with both sides able to reroll!

[AlbertN]

Jul / Aug 1942 - End of Turn situation

[AlbertN]

End of Jul / Aug 1942 - Other Actions

Very little happened in the Pacific instead.
The Japanese secured a few small islands, adding them to their perimeter.
Managed to damage an UK submarine unit.

Otherwise the USA repelled the Japanese airplanes trying to strike at their forces to invade from the Fiji. Their carrier planes shot down both of the Japanese bombers sent, though they've sent to the bottom of the seas a quality cruiser. It's still 9 BPs against 3, a bad loss for Japan.

The Royal Marines of UK invade Mogadishu, in Italian Somaliland. For how relevant that could be!
Maybe a colonial war is to be expected - but if the UK will send troops to fight there, by all means, they're welcome.
It just means Italy could have to produce some territorials just to not have the UK walk into planes without a fight.

The US has brought ample forces in the Fiji sector, especially landing crafts; and more land forces.
It's clear they've something in mind.

On a totally differnt note - this turn Germany spend 8.4 OIL points!

[Centuur]

With the Caucasian oil Euroaxis controlled, they can affort to use this many oil. It will be a long time (if ever) for the USSR to be able to come back out of Siberia...

[AlbertN]

End of Sept / Oct 1942 - Lisbon liberated.

With the failure of the Axis counterattack against the W.Allied beachead ( a risky and bold move, high risk, high reward. Alas it did not worked) the fate of Lisbon was sealed.

Hitler's blaming Mussolini for his useless tankettes not even able to blitz back into the waves the invaders.
Mussolini, tremendously offended by the remark, ensures the situation will be fixed - yet he lacks the means to achieve that.

But the W.Allies strikes again, landing in Lisbon and combining the beachhead troops with the new invaders to seize the capital of Portugal.

Meanwhile the Italians withdraw from Russia their aerial assets, Hitler augments drastically the deployment of German forces and airplanes in Spain.

The Allies too start to bring in more planes - not troops because they cannot get space for them.

Axis quickly sweeps through the partisans at the rear - in one case it costs 2 Axis units (2 divisions) but that is also a good way to rebase planes (It seems as Portugal is liberated, all of its non ZOC'ed hexes, or empty of ground or air units will be converted to the USA - something I cannot afford or suddenly the next turn I'll have 3 HQ landing and acting as ports in as many Portugal coastal hexes).

The Allies for now can hold Lisbon. Maybe forever, it's not en easy hex to take when well defended.
One can wonder if the Axis will recall the Italian navy from Aden too for some shore bombing effect!

[AlbertN]

End of Sept / Oct 1942 - Ostfront

September started relativaly bad for the Germans. They tried an assault on Astrakhan - only a +4 attack - but with the insight that there is only 1 unit in the place and that such could have been overwhelmed. Germany can trade 2 losses for 1 for what can turn - later on - into a staging point for Soviet attacks.

It forces the German to encircle it, and keeping a HQ there.

Otherwise the Germans slowly grinded their way through any Soviet unit unable to escape.
Meanwhile the panzers are spearheading toward the Urals, Stalin is erging up a new defensive line - but for now that defensive line has more holes than a swiss Hemmental.

[AlbertN]

End of Sept / Oct 1942 - Destroyed Units & Happenings

Colombia:
In South America the Panamense occupation of Colombia was met with resistance! Once the Panama CAV unit reach for the oil rigs - exhausted by the forced march across the mountains in harsh weather - is attacked by the "Regular" Army of Colombia.
Both units litterally fight to death.

Fiji & Kwajalein Port Strikes:
The Japanese performed a grandtotal of 4 port attacks this turn!
The Americans gunned down 2 of their CVP units! (The pain - mostly for the pilots)
Japan did not achieved meaningful results - ultimately damaging only 1 Carrier (But it took it out of the equation), the BB New Jersey and 1 crappy cruiser.

Naval Battles in the Pacific:
In the sea outside of the Fiji the Japanese struggled against the USA, as per usual, with 2 cruisers (which both got damaged) and one airplane.
At least the local carrier of the US was damaged in port in the first impulse, that left the US short of aircover except a freshly arrived P38 based in Pago Pago - that swiftly went to provide air cover for the convoy.
The US lost a convoy - and had to replace it, and got a cruiser damaged.

In Polynesia, just off Pago Pago, a lucky Japanese submarine found the US convoys, and they were nicely found too - so that 3 convoy points were sunk, for the submarine to be simply aborted.

For some unfathomable reasons (admittedly, hoping for improved weather and to then invade Saipan) the US sent a Carrier Task Force with extremely low escort in Marianas Sea; with some Battleships in a different box except the BB Washingto that travelled with the CVs.
It was Storm, the US were on low boxes to make presence for an invasion force later on - and the Japanese had already a presence in the sea. A task force of 6 cruisers was assembled and sent in for the kill. Alas, only a US carrier got damaged.

Naval Battle in Azanian Sea:
Storm there too, but there are CV carriers. This time at least they've a reason - air cover to the port of Mogadishu were there are relevant naval assets (the Queens and the Royal Marines, and other 3 ships), and an Italian Gabbiano could port strike.
So the Regia Marina takes the gamble, maybe the Royal Navy is caught off guard and a carrier can get down into the bottoms. Alas the Italians fail in their findings - and the RN reacts sallying forth with a large battle squadron from Diego Suarez.
The searches are rather vain - the Italians send in their BBs, now that the cruisers can make presence the Richelieu and the Giulio Cesare makes in.
The Brits and the Italians find each other - and they lose two cruisers each and the Italians suffer more in terms of what is damaged.

[AlbertN]

End of Sept / Oct - Repair Pool, before production

[AlbertN]

Small Update - Another time warp was requested.

My friend - and opponent - realized that the Soviet counterattack east of Saratov, for how damaging on the German forces (Which lost 3 Mechs and 1 O-Chit) would not have truly saved him, and actually it worsened the situation by a lot as the Soviets lack units to form a coherent line and defence at the Urals (Assuming the escaping infantries are caught up by German tanks on the way too).

So he asked a return back in time before his Soviet attack east of Saratov. We're debating that point (In the end it's better to keep the game open, because if Soviet production drops even more ... well they will really get pushed east to Chita!)

[Subotei]

Please don't be tempted to jack the game in if Russia can't be saved. I want to see Sealion '44 [8D]

[AlbertN]

Sealion '44 is a bit hard with USA around frankly, and the non existant Axis fleets!
I don't want to jack the game, nor my opponent (Though we both like playable games to an extent). Already the last one was jacked because of a critical bug ... (And that was the 3rd we closed either because of a bug or situation too grim!)

[Dogfax]

Hi all,
Still loving this AAR and the format it has been presented in. Thanks for the hard work and know it is read in detail and thoroughly enjoyed. Agree that this is looking like a good final fight as although it isn't looking good for the USSR, there are still several years left to play and as you say the seas are still ruled by the allies. Interesting tactic the USA invading most of South America. I have not seen this before. Makes sense, but doesn't fit well into the "ethics" of the allies. But tehn history is always written by the winner so I am sure news will spill out of some ghastly axis alliance plotting Americas doom. Well if they win. Otherwise Hitler will use it of proof of his tactics all along. perhaps, maybe....[:)]

[AlbertN]

We're just "jumping back" to the 3rd impulse of Jul / Aug though, the game should go on!

The US tactic is not very worth I think because of the VP loss in general. But we play for the fun - and we'll see later on what happens about victory. Heck we could even play on with some odd agreements to give a small boost to Axis if the game is somehow open in '45 (Since USA keeps gearing on).
Main issue for that is that there is a lack of units except the ... Carrier Planes.

Given "heavy units" can be edited in somehow and there is a basic rule, they're regular units and one has to scrap the matching corp once it is scrappable / destroyed. That would be a hell of work though, to edit in all these units.

[AlbertN]

Jul / Aug 1942 - Timewarped Summer

Meanwhile Stalin's scientists reassured him of a new secret weapon being prepared; they managed to repair the Time Machine.
Which was promptly used again, right before the fall of Stalingrad and Saratov. Now Stalin knew his tank counterattack would deprive him of 3/4 of his armoured forces, leaving him stripped of mobile forces to defend the Urals; meanwhile the Germans would be losing only 1/4 of their armoured forces in Russia, and would remain widely superior in terms of infantries.

Yet, it seems statistics, calculations and battle odds cannot change -that- much. Actually, Stalin, probably somehow cranky because the W.Allies are not giving him a single penny (yeah, no lend lease at all) provided wrong information to his "allies".

The session was quite tragic for the Allies (and as Axis I claimed as minor compensation for the "time warping" to get rid of the 2 Spanish Partisans, one with a final roll of 18 as the attack is a +4 and the other smoothly, as the attack is a +10) ... and we started session at Allied Impulse 2 (Turn Impulse #3).

Their grand landing north of Lisbon worked, an INF, a GARR and an INF-Div. The Germans moved in to surround the hex - and the W.Allied the impulse after rammed eastward inland - 11 + Shore Bombing vs 6 Turkish combat factors (one of the flipped by the US bomber that you see destroyed). One loss each.
The Turks lose their division and keep their 5-3 INF. The W.Allies opt to destroy the US Garrison to make space for a HQ to land.

Yet in the Axis impulse before the HQ can land, the Italian Blitz happens. This time the Italians shipped first a MECH from Marocco and waited - once the W.Allied exhausted themselves against the Turks they added via a 2nd TRS (and another Combined Impulse) a 6-1 GARR in Lisbon. With the extra punch, a less Allied unit and all of the Allies flipped the Axis lost their MECH but sent into the sea the W.Allies.

Ontop of that the W.Allies tried a landing in Porto, left unmanned (but ZOC'ed). With their carrier planes exhausted already, the Axis slipped in a Condor undisturbed to pump to 3 the Notional. That sufficed ... the W.Allies roll, and roll a 19 (Total). They lose both units invading. Funnily enough 18 would have suited them much better.

To add to the salt in the W.Allied wounds in Europe, the RAF goes to bomb Lille and loses 2 FTRs escorting.

That tallies in Europe from US 1 INF, 1 GARR, 1 INF-Div, 1 MAR-Div, 1 LND3+Pilot; and 2 UK FTR2.

__________________________________

In the Indian Ocean the Japs found the CL Adelaide (sunk) and a CW submarine (damaged) for no losses.

The CW still invades Mogadishu.

__________________________________

The Soviets suffers heavily, though manage to escape with the core of their forces toward the Urals (and obtain also Sept / Oct initiative). Yet their losses are extreme, and the Germans managed to seize Astrakhan too in this occasion.
Which leaves a GARR and a MIL isolated in the swaps south-west of Astrakhan.

_________________________________

In the Pacific the US disaster comes.
If you remember the US had velleitary wishes to land in Efate - and had a surface task force there.
The Japanese daringly change plans and send in 2 CVL with the CVPs (That you see both destroyed). The Japanese have 2 CVLs and the very long range (22 range) NAV. CVLs at 1, and the NAV at 4.

The Japs luck out a few searches, damaging the US TRS with the Marines, a cruiser and the BB New Jersey.
The US retaliate by bringing in their fleet carriers (The 5 ones moving 6) but the Japanese find only with their NAV and avoid combat.
Meanwhile the Japanese are bringing in some land based planes, the CVLs launch an attack to a port in the sea zone with the escort of Zeros coming from the Solomons sea zone against Nuku'Alofa (East of Fiji).

That's 1 bomber and 3 fighters. The US intercepts with 5 FTRs albeit of inferior quality. That is all to bomb a single cruiser!
The Japanese wins the surprise, 5 points. They alter the air to air difference. Planes:

5 5 6 -- 5 4 4 4 4 || Fighter line

3 || Bomber line

The Japanese start to whittle away the US fighters, but they lose their bomber so there is no port attack in the end.

Then in subsequent impulses, meanwhile the USA are out of new assets to bring, three land based Zeros join the fray (6, 5 and 5 air to air. Like the carrier ones, just these are the land based 13 range lot!). One goes on the 1 to cover the carriers, and the other two go with the NAV at 4. US task force is at 2.

The Japanese find, and find again and even better. The first find brings a carrier damaged - for the US. The second time it's a search roll of 1 for the Japs, and a 10 for the US.
Two Light Carriers fighting against the pride and might of the US! And the Japanese planes mince through the Wildcats and get to the target. A moment of luck shines on the US (their AA, lowest of 3, guns down the CVP - with the one lost in the port attack now the CVLs are empty.).
But the sheer amount of surprise points ... the Jap strike a X and a D. And a US carrier sink ... with planes that aborted from the combat too.

Now the US are out of planes, destroyed on a carrier, some damaged from a previous round of combat and unable to fly. They've litterally 4 carriers there being sitting ducks with some cruisers as escort. It's time to withdraw.
The US industrial power wanted though them to have already in Pearl Harbour 3-4 new Carrier Planes, piloted and ready to be embarked. Zero downtime.

September / October '42 to be replayed during the weekend. What will happen?

Time will tell.

[AlbertN]

Sept / Oct 1942 - Discussion with myself, Part 1

Currently there is almost a production partity.

Euro-Axis combined are producing 70 at the moment (and Germany has 5 more factories coming plus Leningrad to seize!).
That will leave them with a combined 9 Oils to use per turn without denting their reserves, once all factories are operational.
Japan currently is producing 29, with all their 6 oils being saved or consumed.
Axis total is 99.

USA and UK combined are producing 95; and saving 12 Oils per turn.
Russia is producing with 11 Factories, producing 11 if not attacked, and 14 if attacked. They're living off the stocked oils, which are about 15. Saving nothing.
France is not producing and China is conquered.
Allied total is 106-109.

The production difference is quite thin, and should roughly remain the same in early '43 once the new production increment hits (for USA it will hit in March / April '43) - which means the Allies currently have a hard life in general.

With that in mind, the W.Allied opted for a long term strategy to pulverize Axis later on in the game (USA built 4 new factories in the early turns of the game, and their Synth Oil. And then aligned both Brazil and Mexico, took Argentina and seized other minors in South America for the added resources.).
That translates in a lot of factories of the US that will benefit of a very high multiplier later on. (They get to 1.75 in early 43', having 47 Factories themselves).

To achieve that it meant they've "invested" some BPs earlier on (4 Factories and 1 Synth) when their production was quite limited (but also limited to relatively indecent units, excluding ships); to start the war not very ready for it. (As it was historically anyhow).

The main problem of the W.Allies presently is that the Soviets have collapsed brutally, and my opponent has sculpted in his mind that only the W.Allies can save the Soviets.
Meanwhile in absolute terms the philosophy is correct ... (and I've seen an amount of AAR / Other games where the W.Allies are dominating already in '42 - which in my eyes is a huge balance concern... paired up with the fact that the US can pratically pour all their production toward Europe exploiting Japan intrinsic weakness - but I'll get there in another reply) ... in this current scope it's not realizable.

Why? The US have at least 2 HQ, 4 good corps and Brazilian units ontop of that into South America. Units that got shipped there using TRS and now that need to be shipped elsewhere.
Why? The UK lost lots of units in Marocco and some in Egypt.
Long in short the W.Allies are short of units to effectively push from any beachead they'd make - and ontop of that operating under air inferiority.

Another reason - but that is something I believe we could House Rule - is that the US are balancing properly their production between Pacific and Europe. (I personally find extremely gamey to do otherwise)

The W.Allies spent - or better wasted - troops and resources into fruitless landings in Europe, being pushed into the sea.
I pointed out repeatedly to my friend that he lacks the forces to push, meanwhile he's convinced in '43 he'd have nowhere to land.

Here we widely differ in opinion. By May / June 1943 the Allies must mass (and therefore start to produce accordingly) airborne troops (Possibly all of them), have 2 Marine Corps at least (For 2 different landings, paired up by regular INFs each and division) to take at least 3 hexes somewhere - in France.
Their air umbrella must come from land based planes, and not carrier planes which are limited and weaker.
Ontop of the invasion force, they must have in UK and ready to be shipped enough HQs to act as ports (That they have - 2 already there and 2 in Brazil; and probably more coming); and sufficient airpower to pin down the German reaction forces in the area, and obviously support the landings.
By how I see it, the Germans and Axis in general cannot cover -all- the beaches with a unit, so there are always ZoC'ed empty zones to land against a weak notional. (Even more if the W.Allies fire an O-Chit for the landing to double up their invaders)

Once achieved the landing - but that would be in mid 1943 - the W.Allies just need to mass in more and more troops in their beachead and expand it slowly.
But with "production parity" (or almost) they cannot really afford to waste resources anymore. They'd have to really sit, and wait, and do nothing in Europe. By how they're set, not even strategic bombing (as they lack appropriate bombers). Main point here is that even at attrition the Axis can save better their pilots, whereas the W.Allied do not.

Someone can point out that to play with LoS and no defensive shore bombardment the W.Allies could have hard time keeping their beachead - well I'd gladly test that out. LoS - they just need to have also air cover on the sea. Defensive Shore Bombing, they need airpower. When the W.Allies landed in France (and that was '44 historically) their superiority was such that the Axis was barely able to move and maneuver around.

The real problem of "this match" is that the Soviets are collapsing. And here comes another different view I've to my friend.
The Lend Lease.

[AlbertN]

Sept / Oct 1942 - Discussion with myself - Part 2.

The Sovietfront here depicted.

With hindsight I believe one of the major mistakes of the Soviets was their absolute shortage of planes. Fighters especially but planes in general.

In my philosophy it's better to have a crappy fighter, than to not have a fighter at all. Even a 4 Air to Air fighter can fend off a bomber that is non escorted - or embattle an escort and hope for some luck.
Germany faces some major problems during any Barbarossa - many related to the air. Shortage of actions for bombers and fighters to catch up is the biggest that come to my mind. And if you take an Air Impulse, the Soviets can maneuver twice in a row non hindered.
But in most cases Germans could have to take attacks without their own air cover, where the Soviets can sneak in these 3-4 bombing points, that deny you a +2 or a +3 off the combat. (Or at times that lonely 4-1 Garrison suddenly go to a 8 combat factor defending unit).

The VVS (Soviet Airforce) has been used improperly (Ground strikes for the most) which means to fight on German hex (more chance to lose your pilot); often in the first impulse of a turn of summer (Which means your plane lands somewhere that can be reached by advancing Germans through the turn - a thing that was avoided in our last "time warp" in fact) instead of being kept as potential deterrent to prevent that such pesky Ju88 goes double range on your tanks maybe and pins them down, without being able to be escorted by the Me109s (which have range 3 instead).

Germany would have got much more trouble, if the Soviets would have got that handful extra of fighters to throw around.

Obviously, Soviets also screwed up by not taking Persia. That would have delayed US of 1 turn maybe - BUT probably the Soviets would have been still at the Caucasus. (Though that means that they'd have to split forces but they'd produce more too!).
Axis can have Theran, and the oil rigs in the south if needs to be. But the Soviets should have held the mountains closeby Baku instead. Without Turkey, the Axis needs a long chain of HQ (Something I don't think Axis can truly afford) or to keep open an Indian Ocean pipeline (Which is something Axis can obtain only for a short amount of time before US can press on Japan fiercely).


Now - I come to the Lend Lease point.
Among an amount of historians I've read about, it's commonly acknowledged that the Soviets could not have been be bested by Germans, but vice versa, without the Lend Lease the Soviets would not have gone anywhere themselves.
WiF does not mirror "food", but Soviets lost all their mass-farming lands in Ukraine and Belarus, among many things the US supplied and stocked the Red Army. Food, clothing (including winter boots too), etc.
An amount of trucks (that Stalin made the Red Army short by shrinking to nothing the trucks factories of Soviet and converting them) and rails. (By what I read the US provided to Russia more rails to lay down, than what Russia produced and laid down from '30 to '41)

Pratically the Soviets were able to reach Berlin thanks to the Lend Lease combined with their manpower and arms production.
The games I've experienced mirror that well - (I could be wrong still, heck in a Barbarossa scenario when I was learning I attacked Lvov with a +13 or something like that, and rolled a 2. Lots of Germans disrupted. That kind of experience litterally screws up Germany entirely. Because if you get your units disrupted, well they're sitting ducks for the rest of the turn.) - as the Soviets without Lend Lease suffer. (Given my friend and opponent has much to practice!)

What I told him repeatedly is that even 3 BPs per turn, equal to 1 extra INF per turn. Which in my eyes it's a lot. Especially when you produce 10-15 BPs, that's 1/3 or 1/5 of your production.

My friend replies "From where I get the BPs?" - he tried to defend Murmansk but the Finns overcame the defences.
There is Archangel - City and Major Port, but can freeze. That means 3 BPs in good weather turns. (4 out of 6 maybe? 3 out of 6?)
Otherwise - since Persia's gone - in this game he'd have to rely on minor ports on the Pacific. Quite a long route from USA which would demand escorts as well and coming pretty close to Japan. My friend deems it not worth, I think it would be pretty good to do. BPs, or even resources for the not used Soviet factories.

Rule wise I am not sure if a Minor Port suffices to welcome the BP or if it has to be linked to the Capital - if so only 1 Minor Port is linked (unless then I can count also all the Cities linked to Magadan).

Another thing to evaluate is to give the limited lend lease to the Soviets even before the war starts (with Germany).