How the Axis could have won II. Allied AAR

[warspite1]

Right, my performance in the first AAR was of course woeful. However it appears there may have been some mitigating factors. Not least there is a bug that can appear in Soviet MPP's. I wondered why I had no units at all in the Baltic in the last game..... anyways, it appears to have hit this game too.

Bill has very kindly done a temporary fix so I can keep going with this AAR. He has given me a 1,000 MPP to allow for what has been missing. Judging by the last game, the problem seemed to fix itself once Germany attacked - so hopefully this one off fix will be enough.

Thanks Bill - great support [&o]

[warspite1]

21st July 1940

France
From north to south and west to east we have:

- The British have been broken on the Somme. I and IX (in particular) Corps are not in great shape to take the Germans on again. There is the option of bringing III Corps over to Le Havre of course.

- The I and Polish Corps remain intact after a superb rear-guard action. At least one of these may need to be sacrificed north of the Seine to try and allow time for other units to guard the left flank of the Paris defenders.

- The Seine river line defenders were attacked in places but all have held.

- Sadly I have a Corps only defending to the north east of Paris - but moving my depleted armies means I cannot reinforce them. Difficult to know what to do here.

- XI Corps will liberate (if only briefly) Strasbourg

[warspite1]

21st July 1940

France

The Italian Army is close to breaking through to Marseilles. I suspect that there will be little, or more likely no, MPP for this front.

[warspite1]

28th July 1940

Reinforcements

None

MPP Expenditure

UK - The last of the Mediterranean Fleet is upgraded, the RAF are brought up to strength and a couple of units in Egypt too.
France - The French get less and less points - and there cause is not helped by the need to transfer the Armee des Alpes north of Paris at a cost of 37 MPP. This leaves enough MPP to strengthen the units on the Seine but the air force and southern front receive nothing.
USA - Nothing
USSR - The USSR research AT and Infantry Warfare. They buy an Engineer, a Corps, an Army and a Garrison.

[warspite1]

28th July 1940

[:(]

[warspite1]

28th July 1940

France and the United Kingdom

In a show of solidarity with the French the British send over III Corps to France. I Corps are ordered to hold Rouen, but they know a concerted attack by the Germans will see them destroyed.... Thus the British hold the Lower Seine to try and stop a flanking manoeuvre north of Paris.

The French adjust their forces to complete a line of units on the west bank of the River Seine, but those in Paris and to the north are below strength. Further more, to do this, the Armee des Alpes has been transferred from the Italian Front. Desperate. To compensate for the fact that these units are below strength and not dug in, and hopefully to buy some time, the heroic French I Corps are asked to hold their ground in the forests northwest of Paris...

There has been no MPP to spare to try and bring 3rd and 8th Armies up to strength, nor has there been any reinforcement of the air force. This is a major blow and there is absolutely zero chance of counterattacking if the upper Seine is breached.

In brighter news, XI Corps re-takes Strasbourg!

[warspite1]

28th July 1940

France

The French battleships pound away at the Italian HQ but once again the suggested result bears no relationship to what happened. 3 points of BB lost for absolutely nothing.

The front is now shorne of Olry's Armee des Alpes and have been told to do what they can to delay Capitano Scarlatto's Spectrum forces as long as possible. Attacking the Italian army north of Toulon in a pincer move is tempting but would only result in further French loss for nothing - so sit tight (and pray that entrenchment helps) is the order.

[warspite1]

28th July 1940

France and the United Kingdom

The two British destroyers put into port for upgrade/reinforcement.

Once again the two French destroyers find the Germans (one wolf pack each) and will be unlikely to survive the German response next turn....

United Kingdom

We haven't seen Egypt in a while. Here it is. As can be seen in the top left of the picture the Axis are well inside the country. The theatre - at least the British element - is totally devoid of aircraft, and the army units are slow to build up. One set of fortifications has at least been built and two more are being worked on (El-Alamein line and the approaches to Alexandria). I just hope there is sufficient time for these to be completed and I can then start looking to short up the approaches to Cairo.

I don't want to expend too great an effort here though because I am convinced that the Germans will try Sea Lion. I can only see that as being the reason there has been no German surface unit action at all.

[warspite1]

4th August 1940

Well that's a blow - Paris has fallen. Basically 4 aircraft beat the hell out of the army there and an infantry unit walked in..... er okay.

[ghostrider293]

Loving this AAR Warspite .... great learning tool as well as being highly entertaining (the 12/22/2016 5:23:35 AM entry about Capitano Scarlatto literally had me spit my coffee out laughing! Thanks for that [:D])
Keep up the great work.

[Hartmann]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

4th August 1940

Well that's a blow - Paris has fallen. Basically 4 aircraft beat the hell out of the army there and an infantry unit walked in..... er okay.

Oops ... that was unexpected. The last screenshot of the situation in France looked promising to me. It would be interesting to see the AI do Sealion (they never did in my games). You still should beef up Egypt though, luckily at least airpower can be transferred fast if need be.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: ghostrider293

Loving this AAR Warspite .... great learning tool as well as being highly entertaining (the 12/22/2016 5:23:35 AM entry about Capitano Scarlatto literally had me spit my coffee out laughing! Thanks for that [:D])
Keep up the great work.

warspite1

Thank-you sir - its nice that someone else shares my peculiar sense of humour [:D]

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Hartmann

ORIGINAL: warspite1

4th August 1940

Well that's a blow - Paris has fallen. Basically 4 aircraft beat the hell out of the army there and an infantry unit walked in..... er okay.

Oops ... that was unexpected. The last screenshot of the situation in France looked promising to me. It would be interesting to see the AI do Sealion (they never did in my games). You still should beef up Egypt though, luckily at least airpower can be transferred fast if need be.

warspite1

Got home just now.
- Got a week off for Christmas [:)]
- Within 10 minutes of walking through the door, my copy of Fighters over the Fleet arrived from Amazon [:)]
- Then remembered what happened before leaving for work this morning [:(]

Didn't see that coming, I thought the Germans would work their way around from north and south. Air Power on its own is just too powerful I think.

[warspite1]

4th August 1940

Overview

The computer has been reading my posts - it thinks the Germans may try a Sea Lion too.... As can be seen though, it won't be easy for the Hun if they do try it - units of the British Army can be seen hard at work building defences while the lead elements of the 1st (Armoured Bicycle) Battalion of the Womens Institute prepare to test those defences out

[warspite1]

4th August 1940

France

At the news of the fall of the French capital the Allied High Command are stunned into silence (only broken by Gamelin's snoring).

What to do??

Well the answer to that is simple. Everything that can move, fly, shoot, shell and bomb will be aimed in the direction of the German Frontier Corps in Paris. The possibility of destroying 8-points is negligible of course but fortune favours the brave.

[warspite1]

4th August 1940

France

Marseilles falls as expected. With Paris gone there is little to do but the French will not go down without fighting.


The commonly accepted story is that the Germans had the best tanks of World War II - this is not actually true.....

[warspite1]

11th August 1940

Reinforcements

United Kingdom
The 11th Army are placed in the south. There is no chance of being sent to France until the situation vis-a-vis Sea Lion in known.

MPP Expenditure

UK - The British spend all their points in Egypt...
France - The French reinforce three units....
USA - Research Infantry weapons
USSR - Not sure what happened to the Soviet MPP? I didn't think I spent a thousand last turn???

[warspite1]

11th August 1940

France and the United Kingdom

The Allied armies awake, knowing today is the day. Today the French reclaim Paris or die tryin'.

Initial attacks are as expected. Bomber and fighter Command lose a large number of aircraft and achieve precisely nothing. The AASF cannot reach Paris and so is sent to target the German 8th Army northeast of Le Havre. No defensive fighters available, a free run for the RAF and.... the results need no announcing from me.....

Every available unit that can counter attack does so - in desperation I even bring the British III Corps into the battle - effectively sacrificing that unit - for absolutely nothing. In total, after five attacks and two aerial bombardments, the German loses 1 point.

[warspite1]

11th August 1940

France

The French battleships all attack the Italian 1st Army in Marseilles but with no result. The XIV Corps in Toulon manages to exchange a point loss.

To the north, the French 5th Garrison decides to see what the Italians have and attempts to cross the border whereupon it comes across an Italian fighter unit which it causes light damage to.

[Klydon]

Wow. That was a pretty good defensive line to bust and take Paris from. In hindsight, I guess a unit to the NE of Paris would have been in order to make the Germans fight for more access to Paris. Either way, you did better than historical in terms of drawing the battle out for France into August.

Interesting in deploying two engineer units to Africa to build fortifications like that. I would have considered making the line 1 more hex row west to include the hill and also keep the enemy away from direct attacks on El Alamein at least initially. I think the thing that will be your undoing here is you have only 1 army and the lack of air is going to make itself felt as well. While I didn't have any engineers available here, I did send additional armies and a HQ unit. The armies are much better in terms of stats (but also more expensive), especially early on in the war on defense. Allied corps just serve as target practice for the most part. I took my lumps, and while the Africa Corps managed to push my line back one hex, they were never able to really threaten El Alamein and they eventually ran out of steam, although it was very close for a long time. Note that I eventually wound up with 2 ground support planes, 2 fighters and 3 carriers and that was barely enough to win air superiority and be able to attrition the Africa Corps to the point that I managed to stop their attack and then push them back out of Egypt in the early part of 1942.

Great and entertaining AAR Warspite. Thanks for taking the time to do it.