Groundhog Day AAR

[brian brian]

Meanwhile shortly after midnight on a late September evening, the entire staff of the Belgian embassy in Paris appears at the gates of the French Army HQ in Vincennes. "German troops are crossing the frontier!" they report. Though situational maps remain unavailable, Allied contingency plans to form a unified High Command including yet another viciously attacked neutral minor country are unsealed. Belgium's King Leopold orders his forces to take command from French C-i-C General Gamelin.

Within an hour CBS radio correspondent Shirer begins a live broadcast to a stunned American public just sitting down to dinner. Newspaper editors around the USA scrap their nearly completed front pages for the next morning's papers and start over.

[Jagdtiger14]

Attempting a Surprise Port Strike on the Italian TRS is sometimes considered almost a standard opening move in the game.

Funny, it used to be standard in our board games as well (surprise port strike)...including setting up in Naples as a counter (Taranto is considered bad luck[:)]). Then after the Italians nailed the CW CV's and its escorts a few games in a row, CW players decided it wasn't the risk (in fact other than subs, stayed out of the Med completely until at war). Neither side wants to risk the surprise disaster possibility, so other than a few CA's Italy stays in port as well.

I agree losing a carrier is not that big a deal, but two orange-class CV's? And then there are the valuable pilots as well.

[brian brian]

The odds the CW loses 2 CVs are probably similar to the odds that the Italians lose both TRS, maybe a little higher but not all that much. One is likely to go for either side though.

[brian brian]

OK now to backtrack a little with the game reporting.

Allied Impulse #4 - CW Combined, France Land; the other 3 you should probably know

France aligns Yugoslavia and rolls a 2 for the US Entry Effect = one chit lost (a 4 I believe)

The Royal Navy sends their 2 CAs in reserve in England to escort convoys in the Cape Verde Basin; they also send a troop transport convoy escorted by the main Battleship squadron of Home Fleet to the North Sea. They search for and destroy the CA Abruzzi in the East Med and survive an Italian SUB activation attempt in the Cape Verde Basin.

The troops afloat in the North Sea (HQ Gort, MECH, Infantry Division) disembark in northern Denmark and seize the port of Frederikshavn from a German motorised division that had occupied the place. ( +21 Blitz)

The French shuffle their lines around the Maginot, withdrawing Georges back into France and using his re-org points to regroup the INF and AT Gun in Germany that had been ground struck by the Stuka, as well as one of the GARR units in Strasbourg.

China shuffles a few WarLords in their rear areas but puts the front line on pause. The Russians rail a second GARR unit from Odessa to Omsk and withdraw their mobile forces on the Galician frontier back into the Kiev Military District.

[brian brian]

The Weather Roll for Impulse #5, the third Axis impulse, is a 3.

The Germans DOW Belgium and roll an 8 for the USE, drawing a new "4" chit.

The French align the Belgians and set up their CAV in Liege with both of their INF ordered to form up on the coast west of Antwerp.

All 3 Axis powers take a land impulse.

A Stuka strike on the main French Army concentration on the Belgian border manages to dis-organize the crucial French AA reserve though OKH curses the ineffectiveness of the Luftwaffe, which also proves unable to suppress the French invasion force in the Rhine woods a second time.

Germany regroups it's forces in Poland around the von Leeb HQ moving south and takes Katowice:

[brian brian]

In the north the Germans withdraw their MTN unit from the Dutch border and move it towards Denmark. Copenhagen is occupied by a 4-4 INF:

[brian brian]

The Italian land impulse has them invading Tunisia as well as taking the capital of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. (This is now actually closer to Eritrea on the new maps, go figure)

In Italy some of their forces begin moving east in the Po valley:

[brian brian]

The Japanese mostly sit tight in the north:

[brian brian]

In the south the Yamamoto HQ enters the front lines after a Japanese Combined Impulse on the 2nd Axis Impulse (#3) delivered a troop convoy (also ART) from Japan directly to Canton:

[brian brian]

That brings us to the third Allied impulse, #6 of the turn.

The CW again selects a Combined and the French a land.

The CW lands 2 MOT corps in Antwerp and moves their MECH unit up to the border of Germany itself, as well as bringing in Hurricane squadrons from England while the Spitfire squadrons are ordered into NW Belgium behind Antwerp. The Polish air forces have previously re-deployed into their industrial cities.

The French send the Belgian INF to defend their capital while the French occupy the lines from there to the Ardennes. The expeditionary force in Germany is withdrawn in light of the new developments; several French INF formations move to the west post-haste.

The Russians transfer their mobile units around Kiev on northwards to the Western Military District.

The Chinese continue their basic movement of retreat-one-province-west.

[brian brian]

The Allied impulse featured no inter-action points at all, so I can fire up the short-wave radio and discern the coming weather for October, 1939:

Summary: Weather S/O 39 Impulse #7

--------------------------------------------------
Roll One
Generating 1 rolls of d10, 1 per line.
Comment: Call Greenland and ask...

10

[brian brian]

Zehn! Mein Gott! The calendar turns and the Hitler Weather comes to an end, for now.

The Germans and Japanese take Combined impulses to reinforce their sodden troops while the Italians push onwards to the gates of Tunis and an exhausted infantry division finally arrives to protect the good Italian citizens of Trieste from the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.

Let's take a look:

[brian brian]

The fronts stabilize for a time and correspondent Shirer decides to visit Brussels during this lull in the action.

[brian brian]

In Japan, IJN Marines are released from reserve status in Sasebo and a detachment of Engineers arrives in Canton

[brian brian]

The end-of-turn roll is a 7 and the Allies have decisions to make.

All Major Powers on their side could accomplish a few things on the To-Do list ... OR the end-of-turn chance could be raised from 30% to 40% or 50% via some Pass options. Successfully ending the turn would mean the +2 modifier on the weather roll would be used on the first weather roll in Nov/Dec. On the other hand, the Allies would like to tighten up here and there and there is still a 40% chance for Mr. Adolf to get some more dry ground for his Panzer treads. So the Conservatives now braying loudly in all Allied capitals decide to issue orders to the troops...

CW, China - Land impulse

or the Fleet...

France, USA, USSR - Combined Impulse


5 La Royale Battleships (with one CA and the CV Bearn) in the south of France raise steam and depart in search of Italian naval squadrons known to be at sea in the western Mediterranean Sea.

Search Dice are thrown and the Axis are due for a good roll:

Italy 2

France 8

[brian brian]

After a couple decades of training in the placid waters of the Mediterranean the navies of two neighboring Romance countries maneuver for a Jutland-esque decision on just who's ocean it is.

The Italian cruiser squadrons luck into discovering the rear of the French battle line and bear down on a new class of warship entering combat for the first time - the French aircraft carrier Bearn, with a glittering flight of American monoplane fighters still awaiting orders on deck. (4 Surprise to select Surface, 3 to pick X on Bearn from 2X)

With the heavily armored Zara class leading the way the Bearn is soon aflame but still afloat (Damaged), covered by the La Royale Battleships; the Lorraine also takes heavy damage but maintains position in the line. But the French BBs return fire on the Zaras (X, D, 3A), sinking the Fiume immediately, crippling the Zara and forcing it to set course for port, covered by the Pola also with a raft of miscellaneous damage all over the ship leaving it unable to continue the fight.

The ship captains order their maneuvers with the French turning towards the Italian ships; both sides await the decision of the Regia Marina Admiral...

[Jagdtiger14]

Admirals Enrico and Mario decide they mostly did what they came to do and head home for fresh baked...I don't know...pizza?

70% chance to sink that CV/cp/pilot.[:@]

[brian brian]

Given what the French face on land, Damaged usually = X for their ships. Which can become the best result for the Axis, later on, perhaps.

[Jagdtiger14]

I agree. That's why I'm heading back. If the French want to invest extremely valuable BP's on naval units I would be surprised. Also, every Italian ship the French can sink or damage is a victory for the Allies.

[Orm]

ORIGINAL: brian brian

France aligns Yugoslavia and rolls a 2 for the US Entry Effect = one chit lost (a 4 I believe)

I have not been completely updated in this AAR until now. I just checked the headlines.

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Good for France. I do not think it ever happened in any of my games that Yugoslavia was aligned to France. CW once, I think. We have probably been playing way to conservative. Once we were young, dashing and aggressive. Those days are long gone so therefore it is very refreshing following this game. Thank you for all the action. [:)]

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I believe it is a 5 for US entry effect. (Not that it matters at all)