'We got five years..5 years what a surprise' NO STJEAND

[sillyflower]

16 August

WDF moves to the Iraqi border and UK buys an inf xxx. 2 more unanswered hits on uboats making it 11 such hits for the loss of only 6MM.



Just to show that UK is well-defended. Carriers next to Cardiff and mixed force off the cornish coast are there to deter an attack on Plymouth. It's a full-size port and the easiest target.

I don't know how those circles appeared or, more importantly, how to make them disappear. Advice welcome as are any other comments or qu's

[ComadrejaKorp]

I don't know how those circles appeared or, more importantly, how to make them disappear. Advice welcome

These circles indicate the radius of action of your bombers, pressing R they appear, if you press R again, other circles that indicate radius of action of your fighters will appear, and if you press again they will disappear.

[sillyflower]

Tx for saving me from the tyranny of unwanted circles.

30 August:

Italians bomb the RN in Alexandria and get 3 hits for the loss of 10 bombers. Fleet moves to Pt Said where fighters have just arrived. Allies invade Iraq and the forces of Mordor mass on the northern border of Yugoslavia.

[sillyflower]

13 Sept
The forces of evil reach the outskirts of Belgrade, but Iraq sensibly agrees to become part of the British Empire.

In the Med the Italian air force conducts another bombing attack on the Royal navy, not noticing that there were spitfires there. 9 bombers lost for no reward.

[sillyflower]

27 September 1940

The orcs seen last week reach the outskirts of Belgrade, but there was good news when Iraq agreed to become a part of the British Empire.

In the Med, the Italians tried a repeat bombing attack on the RN, but the newly arrived RAF fighters were waiting. 9 bombers were shot down before the rest jettisoned their bombs harmlessly into the sea then fleeing.

[sillyflower]

11 October

5MM lost but no uboats . I manfully resist the desire to rage quit at such a weird result.

Elsewhere it is clear that Greece will not be invaded. Stsauron has always done this in our earlier games but I'm sure/sad that he has made the right decision here. WDF invades Persia as it is not needed elsewhere and Prsia is now even more worth taking because of the new lend lease route there. 5 points a turn should be worth an inf army one day.

[sillyflower]

25 October

Only 2MM sunk and I did get 1 sub hit so I can't complain. Otherwise the phoney war continues. Below is a photo of the successful attack.

[sillyflower]

November

Genuinely nothing happened, not least because I did nothing in my 8 Nov turn. Only when I got the 22/11 turn did I realise that I had just pressed the send the 8 Nov to server button thinking it was my 25/10 turn which I had saved earlier [:-].

At least I have to assume that my rather-more-sane-than-me opponent had not done anything worth worrying about in the earlier turn.

[sillyflower]

December was equally dull but we celebrate Xmas with the casualty list




Christmas hampers to the RAF and Royal Navy outstanding performances

[sillyflower]

And the remaining forces



Comparing with the starting forces, The British army and escort numbers have gone up a lot. Increasing size of navy and MM fleet has all been in the building queue or gifts from Stsauron's victims.

The Italian army and airforce have both grown despite the latter's relatively high losses.

The G army has grown slightly but the LW has shrunk slightly. Neither seem to have received replacements so those numbers will rise quite a bit before Barbarossa. The real surprise is the growth of the Kriegsmarine. Some obviously from queued units, but he must also have built more uboats as well as replacing casualties. Suits me as I'm not going to run out of MMs and the uboats are still using training torpedoes most of the time.

I was surprised that USA only has little more than half the MMs it has in Sep't '39. The army is also slightly weaker, though with higher experience. Can anyone explain? The US does have more transports though I don't think they can be swapped

I will need to build some more US MMs for arctic convoy purposes, but no other ships in this game. I do have 3 or 4 escorts queued up so I'm hoping/expecting I won't need any more especially as the UK ones are '41 tech now.

StSauron is bound to start Barbarossa early so I'm defending more forward than normal, after having been caught out twice recently.

[sillyflower]

Jan and Feb '41

The only combat was 31 Jan when 3 more uboats died whist achieving nothing.

Apropos the need to build US MM's, it's virtually impossible. I can only build 1 set before getting 'not enough shipyards'. Maybe I can start on another when the BB launches in May.

Hordes of orcs mass on the Soviet border

[sillyflower]

March '41
was equally dull. Not a single combat - tho' I suppose that is a bit of relief for the SU these days.



Russia facing a huge Wehrmacht - almost 1700 pts in total tho' not all facing east. Going to be very hard going especially with their very high exp. levels and mine are (censored- this is a family friendly forum)

[Flaviusx]

Gotta build shipyards with the USA, true even in 39 let alone the 40 scenario. 10 minimum imo. You really need about 150 merchants with the USA to handle their own needs plus maximum lend lease to the Soviets.

Plainly you are going to get hit with an early Barbarossa, probably even regardless of the weather. Good luck. Not sure the Soviets can stand up to this very well with the present game rules. It was already a tall order beforehand.

[sillyflower]

April

No Barbarossa[:)] Phew!

[sillyflower]

May 9

Still no Barbarossa despite the N. European weather (almost all of western Russia) was clear. This is not like my opponent at all. Gott mit uns not the nazis. Small withdrawals from the front lines by some exposed, good quality units. 1 or 2 replaced by rubbish in the role of speed bumps.

The only reason I can think of is that my opponent is worried by a potential oil shortage.

[Flaviusx]

His oil should be topped off by now based on what I'm seeing here. He has hardly been using it since France fell.

Thank your lucky stars.

[sillyflower]

May 23

Some of my stars are lucky. First and foremost - no Barbarossa despite clear in north moderate again. If it's not the oil, I haven't a clue.
Of minor importance, 6 uboats hit for the loss of 4 MMs. This leaves me with only 200 excess UK MMs. With the launching of the US BB, 30 more US MMs have been ordered so I will be up to 89 when US enters the war. This is also the same number US gets in '39.



Bit of a shambles off N Africa where 2 UK inf xxx landed 1 either side of Algiers to try to take some pressure off Russia.. For some reason 1 of them landed without any MPs even though both had only come from Gibraltar. As a result, 1 xxx was unable to kick the French out despite massed naval bombardment and 4 carriers each flying 2 ground missions to soften up the defences. To make it worse, the Italian subs actually did 8 pts damage on my CAs and DDs whose job was to soak up their interdiction. I need to do better next turn. Landing the inf xx was a mistake - it should have been used to take Oran[:-].

[sillyflower]

6 June. Clear weather in every hex on the map, but no Barbarossa. Ultra intercepts discover German units moving away from the Russian border, and seemingly heading for North Africa. It look that the Rodina will be safe until spring '42 thanks to the attack on Algiers.

The test of the'40 scenario now becomes a test of a '42 Barbarossa too.

In NA, continuing naval gunfire and carrier support enabled Algiers to be taken quickly. Weirdly, the inf xxx that landed with no OPs left now has 6, so is able to head east to defend from arriving Nazi armour. The race is on to recapture Oran from the Italians.If I take that, the German who now occupy the ports on the west side of NA should have supply problems.

The screenshot was taken before the WDF, a canadian xxx, fighters and bombers landed at Algiers -though I thought that they could not do that the same turn the port was captured.Equally odd, the carriers just outside Algiers sank 2 german MM in their turn- though I have no idea how they got there. Please don't tell me that they were on the way via the Straits of Gib to supply the G troops landing south west of Gib!




I may have to bug out of NA if too many baddies come but, come what may, stoping Barbarossa will have been worthwhile. The Axis will be bigger next year, but they won't have much more fuel and the allies will all be bigger too.

[Flaviusx]

I am thinking he never intended to do Barbarossa in the first place, otherwise he would have started it before you tried NA. But the strat here seems very poor to me. He will waste this year screwing around the Med without it leading to any decisive results, and despite with Alvaro thinks, a 42 Barbarossa remains not especially attractive. The Soviets will be too strong given another year to build up. Delaying the mech op and reducing the effectiveness doesn't really make much difference in 1942. What matters is having a full extra year of production. The 42 Barbarossa is never going to be as good.

[sillyflower]

Flavius, that was a logical thought but my NA attack was well-signaled in advance by pre-placing the Royal Navy in 4 stacks to enable it to bomb/bombard twice. Due to rain, the 1st time I did this, they all had to return to Gib to refuel. As the whole point was to suck troops away from Barbarossa, secrecy was not even helpful. The axis-held Med ports were full of Nazis before I actually invaded.

Back to the fortnightly Russian inf xxx build. I faced 2 or 3 '42 Barbarossas under earlier versions and they weren't much good.