AAR - PBEM Game 4

[IDrinkBeer]

Getting some more of us lucky testers into the mix...

Germany - medic152
Japan - bigbabyhead
SU - IDrinkBeer
WA/China - Oleg


The first turn is almost complete. Someone ( maybe me ) will post more details in the near future.

[Oleg Mastruko]

What, no one's going to post here?

I will open the season, hopefuly others will join later. I am WA here, this is the first time I play WA in 4-player game (after playing RU and JA), and - wow! Rags to riches. I have... much... stuff... allll thissss.... isss.... mineee... [:D] I am not very versed in naval things, so expect occasional fu*kups at the scale of Midway [:D]

Actually this could be interesting game. This first turn will show you that GE player must really do blitzkrieg on turn 1 taking France out of the war or else...

Seeing France is not completely occupied, I did Dunkirk, and evacuated BEF and what remained of French army to England, to fight another day (tall French guy with a big nose is with them as well).

Oleg

[Oleg Mastruko]

In Middle East, British Indian army occupied neutral Iran and Afghanistan. Afghanistan is devoid of any resources, but it seemed like a fun thing to do.

Iran's (Persia) resources were repaired immediatelly.

Oleg

[Oleg Mastruko]

There were two huge naval battles this turn, and one smaller.

First our surface forces and CVs attacked German fleet in the North Sea, that was supporting invasion of Norway. We used "CV force projection capability" so that our CV didn't enter the area it attacked, CV remained in adjacent area, sending strikes into the area with German ships. We also used some heavy and light fleets and subs. Results were mixed, and both sides lost some naval assets.

Second naval battle was in west Med (picture) vs. Italian Navy. We didn't actively seek this battle but we had to enter West Med in order to be able to evacuate French forces from North Africa (picture). (If, or when Paris falls these become Vichy forces, so better evacuate them while they're still loyal to De Gaulle and Allied cause [:D])

Third, smaller naval battle occured in central Med, where our BBs from Alexandria attacked and sunk some Italian transports for North Africa.

Chinese did nothing worth mentioning [:D]

Oleg

[IDrinkBeer]

Stalin here...

What is with these Capitalist/Fascist/Imperialist peoples....

They fight over the smallest things. So what Poland is no more. Do you seeing me crying over the spilt milk. Neyt.

It is good that they are all fighting each other. We the Union of Soviet Peoples will stand on the sidelines and wait. When these countries have exhausted themselves on each other we will come in and take over.

Long live Communism...

I must go now and finish purging my army of disloyal officers.

[bigbabyhead]

Nothing fun to look at on the map, so here's Japan's 1st turn production.

Oleg's lack of naval experience probably won't hurt him too much in the Pacific, since we're likely to just stumble around like two drunks having a slap-fight.

The Persia move is interesting and has me very nervous.

[bigbabyhead]

The German player hasn't posted here yet, but I'm impatient so I'm going to report my next turn.

Bombing runs on Chinese forces did some minor damage to them, although due to a bug, I can't bomb Changsha without triggering militia creation, so I had to bomb some other provinces. Take THAT Foochow! The rest of my movement was just getting escorts into place for the transport fleets in the pacific. I'm going to try not to get rolled over quite as quickly in this game.

Production screen is attached, I spent some research points on bringing up the ASW capabilities of my Light Fleets. I'm going to need that badly against the WA who already seem to be upgrading their sub forces.

[Hanal]

I'm confused concerning the bug...I thought militia creation was supposed to occur?

[bigbabyhead]

It is, but not during pure bombing attacks. I shouldn't have used the word "assault" up there without also adding the word "air." I'll edit it for clarity.

If I moved troops in, it would be perfectly normal. Right now, I just pretend Changsha has a missile defense shield.

[Hanal]

Thanks for the clarification.....

[SeaMonkey]

I noticed Afganistan has no rail graphics and heard mention that there are no resources. Does this mean that it can not be used as a staging area for attacks elsewhere? Is there no in game means of creating an infrastructure in such similar areas? It would seem logical that given an investment of resources, supplies, etc. and the availability of an engineering contingent that creation of a staging base to launch attacks from is not unfeasable, given the length of the scenario.

[IDrinkBeer]

Stalin here again....


The purges of disloyal officers is almost complete. Siberia is where I have sent most of the junior level officers guilty of crimes against me ( I mean the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ).

I have also instructed our researchers to concentrate on our offensive capabilities. If someone were to attack us ( Capitalist PigDogs ) I do not care how many men we lose, I want them to kill our attackers dead.

On another front, my good friend Adolf has sent me a very nice card for my birthday. I really like that guy. Remind me to instruct my minister of the interior to send him an extra large shipment of raw goods this month.

Better be Red or else you'll wind up dead!!

Sincerely Yours,
Uncle Joe

[Oleg Mastruko]

WA doing well, not much to report. We research lots of stuff. We sunk some German transports. See Lowe is nothing but Adolf's wet dream.

We'll post screenshots when something important happens [:D]

O.

[a19999577]

ORIGINAL: SeaMonkey

I noticed Afganistan has no rail graphics and heard mention that there are no resources. Does this mean that it can not be used as a staging area for attacks elsewhere? Is there no in game means of creating an infrastructure in such similar areas? It would seem logical that given an investment of resources, supplies, etc. and the availability of an engineering contingent that creation of a staging base to launch attacks from is not unfeasable, given the length of the scenario.

Well, yeah... there was the whole 'Bridge over the river Kwai' thing, right?

[Oleg Mastruko]

Bridge over river Kwai is one thing, building complete railway infrastructure in one of the most remote countries of the world, during the WW2, is another. I don't think even the US, mightiest country in WW2, could have properly "railway-ized" any of the backward areas that don't have rail infrastructure at the beginning of the game in the given timeframe.

I can't recall anything like that occuring during WW2... Building a single bridge (like Kwai) or repairing some track somewhere in Russia (and keeping it usable) were major engineering feats even for major powers, making anything beyond that possible in this game would turn it into bad "parallel universe" Science Fiction IMO.

O.

[SeaMonkey]

Perhaps you are right Oleg. Now let's see how long did it take to build the Panama Canal? Wasn't it something like 10 years and wasn't that around the beginning of the Century?[&:]

[a19999577]

Actually, I believe the Japanese attempted to actually build an entire railway from Thailand to Burma. The Bridge was just a crossing point. However, it was just a single rail-link, quite far from a network.

[Iñaki Harrizabalagatar]

The British also built some sectors of railway in North Africa. The lack of wailway network was a big logistic problem, according to Van Creveld, Rommel´s Supply problems 1941-1942 JRUSI 119, pg. 67, the OKH calculated that Rommel´s force would need 20 times more trucks than a comparable force in Russia.

[YohanTM2]

ORIGINAL: a19999577

Actually, I believe the Japanese attempted to actually build an entire railway from Thailand to Burma. The Bridge was just a crossing point. However, it was just a single rail-link, quite far from a network.

Very little was ever built. The same for the overland supply route from Burma to China, not a hope during WWII.

[tcl2828]

This is going to be a hit - I love it. When is the expected release?