Groundhog Day AAR

[Jagdtiger14]

Yeah, that never happened to me either, and frankly I don't think it should be allowed vs Germany.

The '4' is the actual US entry chit value, which was lost when France aligned Yugo. Then France got the '4' chit back again when Germany DOW'ed Belgium.

[brian brian]

I've never seen it happen before either. I've known about the possibility for a long time but have never even tried it in solitaire play. I remember it was discussed here maybe six months ago, Paul D laid out some of the possibilities of what could happen afterwards. I don't expect to ever get a chance at it again. But it is part of the game. I call WiF the water balloon game - squeeze the water balloon in one part and it bulges out somewhere else.

I don't quite get the French angle but there may have been something in history to Belgrade<>Paris connections pre-1940. I do know however that the CW connection to Yugoslavia was strong, more particularly to the Serbian officers in the Yugoslavian army. The passages from Churchill's history of WWII make that clear. The Serbs wanted to get in on the action, probably to settle more scores from the pre-WWI Balkan Wars and then WWI and then the dissolution of Austria-Hungary and I would think they had a long list of border adjustments they would want to make. I would expect MI6 was all over the idea starting in the 1930s. Entire books have been written on the subject in the Universities of Serbia and Croatia, probably.

I do think the rule is a little simplistic and the old WiF5 rule mechanic of a coup cell might be a better fit, where if you rolled a 6 the minor aligned with you.

Also I think that if the Serbian officers had been successful at their sort-of coup attempt a few days before Hitler invaded, the country would have fractured immediately and the Croats would have welcomed the Germans in and then promptly invaded Serbia along with them. And then vice versa for an Axis alignment. The Serbs would never have signed up with Hitler to supply troops for an invasion of Russia, and I really have to wonder if the Slovenes or Croats would have been very warm allies of Italy, ever. The CW alignment is the most historical and realistic of the four possibilities in the rule. I have messed around with writing up a House Rule to reflect the likely fracture, creating two new countries, Serbia and Croatia.



But then I don't think Hitler would have had the political capital with OKH to basically launch WWII as a brand new two-front war with simultaneous attacks on Poland and Belgium. Playing the game, we know the effectiveness of Stukas and Panzers. No one did at the time, however. I would never prohibit such in the game, but I don't think it could have happened. After some success in Poland, sure. But there was a good bit of surprise in Germany that Hitler finally didn't get-away-with-it-again on September 2, 1939.

[brian brian]

also re: Yugoslavian politics, I think a more realistic way for France to possibly align Yugoslavia would be an invasion of Italy, though that is unlikely with any bare minimum of forces deployed in the Italian alps. But if that were to happen the Serbs and Slovenes would be all about joining the Allies in hopes of recovering Trieste.

And if you have never read it, I highly recommend the sections in Churchill on this topic. I think the British were in touch with a Serbian officer clique well before the spring of 1941, iirc.

[brian brian]

Well sports fans, what has happened in Europe once the Storms descended upon the Continent? Not much of course.

The Allies managed the tricky maneuver of placing the BEF in charge of the defense of Brussels while King Leopold continues to build up his mobilization in the Antwerp area. The French slowly continued their pivot back from the Rhine offensive to the threatened Ardennes sector.

Also the Poles emerged from their industrial redoubts in order to facilitate mobilization; much relief was felt in Warsaw when a shipment of British oil arrived.

The Germans managed to get their Baltic convoys to Sweden organized, with the Deutschland on long range patrol as well.

[brian brian]

Oh, the weather roll for Impulse #11, the 5th Axis impulse, was an '8' -> '10' with the modifier, leaving a +2 mod going into Nov/Dec. German INF managed to re-take Hitler's beloved Vienna, cutting off the Yugoslavian expeditionary force in Slovakia. I looked it up and the Yugoslavian raid would have removed the Vienna and Bratislava City-Based Volunteer units from the Production Spiral if those units were in play. Germany would be able to re-add them to their force pools upon re-taking the cities but would not receive them for free.

The turn continued to Impulse #13; not shown is the Poles re-arranging their lines to put the CAV south of the factory cities, the HQ in Lodz, and the 5-3 INF to the north of the factories. The French sent a pair of Atlantic-based CAs to the Cape St Vincent zone and deployed their combat experienced anti-tank formations in the Ardennes with minor corps shuffling in the area as well. The turn ended after the Allied impulse (70% chance).

[brian brian]

In China the Japanese released their final REServe unit in Japan, the fearsome Imperial Guard, and immediately used it to help crush an exposed Chinese infantry army, still hiding in caves after Japanese Army aviation bombing strikes several weeks ago.

Not shown is the final Chinese moves of October, 1939, with Chiang continuing his retreat across Kwangsi province.

[brian brian]

Allied Builds

CW add Lend Lease USA F2A (India) to Force Pool; add Polish units to Force Pool, scrap Polish 3-3 INF

USA - 9 - 9 Convoy Points

USSR - 8 - 2 INF, GARR

China - 5 - MIL, Infantry division, Cavalry division

France - 7 - 2 MIL, AT Gun

CW - 11 (I think) - INF, 2 MIL, AMPH face-down, CV plane 1, CV plane 0

[Orm]

Why is the US production only 9 BPs?

[brian brian]

1 BP is sent to Japan.

[Orm]

USA has 41 resources (including oil) and get 3 from Venezuela. They send 4 to Japan. This excludes the Philippines resource that you can not get a convoy link to.

41 +3 -4 = 40 available resources. Save one oil and USA can produce for 39 resources and that works since USA has 40 factories.

39 x 0.25 = 9.75 that rounds to 10. Japan is forced to provide 1 BP to USA so therefore USA should be able to produce for 11 build points (and still be able to save one oil).

[brian brian]

Ahh, thanks. A little rusty on the Allies, had the BP transfer backwards.

I would use 38 resources to produce 9.5 PP => 10 BP

Forgot some USA Force Pool details too...

USA build 9 Convoy Points, CV face-down

[Jagdtiger14]

Ok, we're back on after an extended battle with MWiF end of turn. Things of note:

Only partisan (0-2) in FIC put in jungle NE a couple hexes of Hanoi.

Production: Germany 22 (-2 to USSR)=20, Italy 1, Japan 11. China 5, CW 10, France 7, US 11, USSR 8. Germany and Japan re-orged everything, while Italy only re-orged 3 subs and the NAV (most of fleet on leave). Allies re-orged everything except the French FTR2, and CA's in Mars.

More to follow...

[brian brian]

Altogether we have hit 5 bugs so far:


Italian TRS on the other side of Gibraltar after war started with CW froze game

Stack of 2 CW corps could not switch places with 2 non-cooperating Belgian corps though a legal move

French RES in Indo-China and New Caledonia could not be transported to France

Hex Control change bug in Denmark during conquest phase, actually 2 bugs at once, one of which will be very difficult to fix and pretty rare in most games. More on this one soon.

USA could not loan Oil to West at start of Nov/Dec, only normal RES


I think I typed in the Allied builds.

Axis builds were

Ge(20) - 3 Pilots, HQ-A, LND2, FTR3, finish SUB(1)
It(1) - Finish SUB(1)
Jp - 11 - 3 MIL, ATR3, Pilot

Yugoslavia managed to hamstring Axis production - no resource from Pola for Italy (nor Sardinia), and blocked 5 from the Balkans - Hungary, Turkey, and all of the Rumanian Oil. Yugoslavia has a number of options when they enter the war on the first turn but I thought occupying Bratislava was the best one, rather than trying to raid the German oil hex.

Germany did get a 0.25 production boost via the French attack along the Rhine, though the French were able to evacuate Germany and avoid a further 0.25


The critical game management die rolls have begun going for the Allies. Though they did miss the US Entry roll for supporting Belgium on a 9. But they won the Initiative from the Axis after a re-roll and then the weather was decidedly not in Adolf's favor in November, 1939, with a 7 modded to a 9 creating a Blizzard in the Arctic, Snow in N. Temperate, and a Storm in the Med.

So in November the Allies choose to go first over concern that France's land position could always be improved, a decision made before the Weather roll of course. I also forgot we are playing without Limited Overseas Supply, something I have used playing WiF for probably 20 years. I kind of wish I would have had the Axis go first but there are always big up-sides to going first...



So the CW takes a Naval, the French and Chinese a Land, and of course the US... powers a Combined.

The CW completes Churchill's dream and sends 3 R-class Battleships into the Baltic in search of Swedish ore convoys, while all of the Kriegsmarine is in port. They don't find anything.

[Jagdtiger14]

Yugoslavia has a number of options when they enter the war on the first turn but I thought occupying Bratislava was the best one, rather than trying to raid the German oil hex.

I had a couple chances to take it out but didn't.

Bug #1 above (Italian CA/with INF div west of Gibraltar) was resolved by upgrading the game from 1.0.0 to 2.5.0. I used the backspace key to kill off the Italian units.

The German build was unusual as it is not often they have that many BP's in S/O to work with. Normally a couple more pilots and no HQ-A Guderian/SUB.

[brian brian]

Well of course today is the perfect day to re-start this one.

My current job features excellent internet access since I can almost see the cell-phone tower from where I am camped. Sometimes there are advantages to working on the top of a mountain.

When we stopped my work locations and free time were uncertain but it had also been very frustrating trying to order MWiF to do what what WiF could do.

Allied Lending for Nov/Dec '39 was:

CW loan France 3 BP

CW loan France 1 Oil

USA loan France 1 Oil

USA loan CW 1 Oil

But that wasn't all actually happening on the MWiF screens. Being a long-time player of WiF, I just want the program to do what I want it to - I know the rules well enough.

Going forward, I am hoping we can just ignore MWiF convoy over-rides and manipulate the oil and BP totals ourselves by editing the game data file. Hopefully this will work.

As for what happened in Nov/Dec, hmm. The weather started out with Snow in the N. Temperate but the sun was shining by Christmas. I do recall that the Yugoslavian INF that took Bratislava got demoralized by the Luftwaffe and was easily knocked out by German forces moving down from Poland.

The Russians brought Zhukov back to Mother Russia, proper, oldest-time Russia / Viking Russia, actually as the HQ-A was rail-moved to just south of Leningrad.

The Royal Navy pressed their general blockade of the Axis all around Europe though the R-Class Battleship raid into the Baltic hasn't produced many results yet. A flight of NAV bombers was delivered to Gibraltar for convoy escort duty.

In China the Japanese Marines landed at Canton and proceeded in-land. Chiang called a general retreat through the mountains. Late in the turn, the Chinese forces on the Chengchow front received Intell that the Japanese lines had been so reduced that it looked like Tsinan could be liberated from the bad guys before they would be able to react and two Militia armies embarked on the expedition. (Gambled that turn would end). Instead, the sun came out and the Japanese marshaled an attack:

[brian brian]

The attack on the Kunming Militia forces was quite successful and the Chungking Militia is now cut off from Chengchow.

Meanwhile in southern China, the steady flow of Japanese reinforcements allowed them to launch the campaign for Chang-sha. Chinese forces were ordered to give way if necessary (Blitz table called):

[brian brian]

There again the Japanese attack went through as designed.

In Europe, the sunny 'Hitler Weather" Christmas got the Wehrmacht back in gear. An attack was launched to clear the approaches to the Polish industrial heartland and a major assault was ordered to clear the BEF from the Belgian capital:



Here luck and war did their inevitable dance. The Poles were ordered to conserve forces for the defense of their urban centers. (Blitz called). As the Poles retreated, German pursuit forces, still learning the mass use of vehicles in ground combat, were handled too aggressively and several motorized infantry divisions were cut to ribbons. (1 loss for Germans, had to be MOT even in a battle with no tanks).

But in Belgium, all eyes were on the dice - 15! Brussels falls. Turn ends.