Groundhog Day AAR

[Jagdtiger14]

Ronnie: My guess was that Brian was trying to give the Polish navy the best chance for survival, in addition possibly get the Destroyer flotilla into the 4 box of the Baltic on the Allied turn. I think having the corp he put in Kat in Posen may have helped that cause...although I think he also wanted to keep the Polish air active as long as possible...which having a corp in Kat allows him to do that. These were at least my concerns. Brian?

[Jagdtiger14]

These are the options we're using.

[Jagdtiger14]

France/Germany post Allied impulse 2.

[Jagdtiger14]

CW North Sea fleet.

[Jagdtiger14]

CW fleet in Western Med.

[Jagdtiger14]

CW fleet in Eastern Med.

[Jagdtiger14]

This was the end result of the French attack into Germany. Billotte re-orged two INF in Metz.

[Jagdtiger14]

So now we enter Axis impulse 3 S/O'39. Fair weather everywhere. The CW fleet is sitting out in the Western Med with 5 air-sea factors ready to surprise port strike the Italian fleet next impulse. Italy wont stand for that, and as much as I would like the French to cost the US an entry chit on their DOW vs Italy, the Italian fleet will be at sea, and they don't need the French to get a surprise impulse on them there either. Italy DOW's CW and France (cost one chit). Will do a naval.

Germany DOW's Denmark (no US reaction) to close the Baltic...and begin the Allied payment for attacking into Germany and not getting naval units into the Baltic (other than the USSR doing something, Germany can breath a sigh of relief there). Germany needs the land moves in Poland, Denmark, Germany (begin to repair the southern flank situation), and of course re-org some German reserve units.

Japan will do a combined with an eye on getting HQ-Yam and other stuff out of Japan and into China.

US has 4 chits in the Euro pool (1,1,3,4), zero in the Jap pool.

[Courtenay]

Um, you do realize what having four French corps in Germany means, don't you? If not, there is a rule you are forgetting.

[Jagdtiger14]

If not, there is a rule you are forgetting.

Hmmm...you have me stumped. I've always welcomed French troops to move into Germany from the south, but no one ever took me up on it until now.

[Orm]

Edit: Forget I said anything.

[Jagdtiger14]

Ok, I see what it is now. I did a run through all passing until I got to the French DOW step, where its asking if France wants to align Yugo. I look up the rules and there it says 4 French (or CW) corps or more in any adjacent country can align Yugo.

[Mayhemizer_slith]

Hmmm, Austria is part of Germany. I did not realize that.

I can see the counter attack coming...

[Jagdtiger14]

Actually, Germany needs to rail two units (to Trieste, and Vienna) in case the counter attack fails (which is likely). The max Germany can get on the counter attack is +8 assuming the ground strikes are 100%.

So much for "Fall Gelb"...at least for now. This should actually be very interesting and fun! Big risk (although less so than for Germany) is what if the Germans roll very well? The best French HQ = bye, bye. However, my dice luck sucks, so...

[Centuur]

Well, to be honest, I hope your opponent isn't too upset with the fact that this gambit has been mentioned to early. Or did the French already align Yugoslavia?

[Jagdtiger14]

We are at the Axis impulse 3, so France has not yet had the opportunity to align. I hadn't thought that Brian might be upset about this being revealed...perhaps I can just go forward with what my initial plan was? I'll ask him.

[brian brian]

Ugh, browser just ate my response. More later.

[Courtenay]

I mentioned it because I feel that blindsiding someone with a rule they knew nothing about, while it might be a good way to win a game, is not much fun for either party. If someone makes a decision and it is the wrong one, well, that is why we play the game. To make a decision because of pure ignorance, however, is something else again.

[brian brian]

OK so what I was saying was...

Perhaps we have just hit the first point in the AAR where it would be interesting to play out the game with two different decisions rather than two different die rolls.

I would say that rule 19 has been a part of the game for a very long time, and though this game has a whole lot of rules, it is only partially an opponent's fault when another player doesn't know a rule. It's different when a player is learning the rules of course. The possibility in question here does take advantage of a "for all purposes" clause.

So though I hardly want to take advantage of someone not knowing a rule, as that is not a nice way to play a wargame, it would be interesting to see what happens when Adolf had no clue that those pesky Serbians would launch another one of those infamous stabs in the back that Adolf always blames for all of Germany's problems.

Also I would note that I wondered if perhaps I wasn't being set-up to try this line of play by a very experienced German player with a deliberately weak set-up on the Rhine, though not so completely weak that I could do this without a land attack in Germany. The decision does have it's pluses and minuses as I noted in the intro to this AAR, and it was a tough decision, as is so common in this game.

Ultimately a bit of local history where I am at finalized my decision. I have been working in the Allegheny Mountains of Virginia and when I am out on a fuel run for that special no-ethanol 93 octane I need for my chainsaws, I have been studying the beginnings of Stonewall Jackson's first independent military campaign by literally looking at the terrain personally, always a fascinating way to study war, though the forest cover today is usually quite different than during the American Civil War (the geology is the same though). And many Civil War battles became victories or defeats due to operational or strategic concerns beyond the tactical battlefield, ultimately changing wins to losses and vice versa at times. It wasn't Stonewall's decisions at the following battle that convinced me to try this line of French play, but the operational tactic employed by Union Generals Schenk and Millroy:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_McDowell

In the long run Jt14 should play it however he wishes and he should probably move on with knowledge of what France can choose to do here on their impulse; before I could respond he asked what "4 corps in Germany" even means and I don't quite wish to take advantage of rules ignorance. I would have answered his question honestly over a face-to-face table game with no communications lag. Or perhaps a Japan/Italy player would have pointed out the possibilities to their lead playing Ally.


In other notes:

I probably won't answer every direct strategy question immediately as we will be playing this game more than once. Eventually I will answer such questions however.

Also not shown is that the German Heavy Cruiser Blucher and the fanatical SS Infantry division that volunteered to ride on the escorting destroyer squadron went forth to the bottom of the North Sea. Blub, blub, blub, the fate of all infantry that dares to approach the shores of Brittania. There was either a 70% or 65% (67.5% ?) chance of that happening - 5 or less for the CW roll OR 4 or less on the German roll (first probability + 1/2 the second probability - how does that work?). Anyway if the Royal Navy deploys correctly with how the rules systems work this will basically happen 2/3 of the time.

The Chinese Kwangtung front had to make an important decision, and it decided to retreat a bit back towards Kwangsi and Hunan.
Edit: to use MWiF spellings.

On the historical note, imagine Hitler's position with OKH if he launched General War, his surprise invasion of the Netherlands was foiled and the specter of Blockade was raised once again, his army staggered in an ugly assault on Danzig, the Serbians took Vienna, and the French began to threaten Munich itself (the birthplace of Nazism?). Hitler got the war started with a nice run of events going his way through the late 30s. If that had ended...

[Jagdtiger14]

I think this situation would be very fun to work out. I would like to take the Axis impulse 3 with the assumption that I know nothing of what will happen, and just make the moves I had planned on. As for splitting up the AAR into a branch #2 game would have to begin at German set up to correct the border issue (one or two unit difference only on the western front), then keep everything the same after that including the crappy Danzig roll as well as the Polish navy getting away.

As for the possible invasion of Netherlands, there is always a backup plan.[8D]

Rule 19, I knew it could be done in Albania and Greece, and now that I looked at it all adjacent...and I have read the rule (a long while back) and should have known about this. Sometimes it takes a surprising experience (hopefully at the expense of someone other than yourself). I think this AAR has provided value to the readers.