HB (Axis) vs MM (Allies) No MM for now

[scout1]

ORIGINAL: Harrybanana

So I redo my turn and below is the result. I capture Lodz, but don't cut the units in the West out of supply. I also take more air and ground losses. Note that my Westernmost armour has moved onto the rail lines for the trip West next turn. I also railed a corps to the Danish border and captured Luxembourg. I moved all my fleet except the subs to Stettin. The 39 tech sub was set to priority replacements and my subs stayed in port. I reduced my upgrade replacement level to 20. Just enough, I hope, to upgrade the sub.

Though this wasn't your intent, isn't this a potential pbem cheat ... you're getting different results if you re-run your turn ? Keep doing it till you get the results which are most beneficial ????

[malkarma]

A big number of reloads will be noticed by Slitherine support and contact with you in order to adress the issue. Not being able to give a realiable reason can end in the deactivation of your multiplayer account.

[Harrybanana]

I think the only way to make the game "uncheatable" would be if the game automatically saved to the server after every move or battle. But that would really slow down the game play. So to some extent we have to rely on each other's honour. This isn't the first time that I have had to redo a turn for one reason or another. Usually it is a server problem, but I live in area where power surges or outages shutdown my computer from time to time as well forcing a restart. When this happens I try to redo my turn exactly as before, but of course the battle results vary and I can't always remember exactly what I did.

One thing that happened to me recently though does concern me. I loaded up a pbem game just to see what my opponent did on his turn, but without taking any actions myself as I had to get to work. Normally, of course, when I need to go before I finish my turn I click on the "Save" button. But this time, just to see what would happen, I clicked on the "Exit" button. To my surprise the game exited without saving to server. This is clearly open to abuse. It seems to me that if someone is going to cheat he should at least be forced to turn off and restart his computer. The few minutes lost as the cheater's computer reboots may not be much of a deterrent, but at least it is something.

[Harrybanana]

JAN 17, 1941

The BOA takes another turn in my favour as 6 MS are sunk and no hits on my U-Boats. The Germans build a large corps and 20 supply trucks. I set German replacements/upgrades to 250 as I have lots of units I need to bring up to speed before Barbarossa.

I am worried about MM's carriers attacking my U-Boats in Bordeaux. I am not sure what his chance of getting hits is, but it should, IMHO, be less than 10%. I have 6 AA in Bordeaux; but in a different game my opponent performed a similar move and in 2 attacks sunk a previously undamaged U-Boat while taking 0 hits to his CV aircraft from my 6 AA.

Edit: I forgot to mention that several turns ago the British abandoned Malta without a fight and I occupied it. If I was the British and the Axis put Malta out of supply with several air groups in range I would have done the same. The only way Malta can possibly be saved is by placing 6 AA and a fleet in Malta. But you can't put a small fleet in Malta as you run the risk of the Italian Fleet attacking the units in port. If the UK puts a large fleet in Malta with BBs then they risk losing a considerable portion of the RN.

[Harrybanana]

More important things are occupying MM's attention at the moment so it may be some time before we resume our games, if at all.

In the meantime I read somewhere in the Forum that some people would like to see more details as to how we AAR writers attack, rather than just the before and after pictures. I actually was planning on doing this a bit in this AAR, but didn't because it is very time consuming and I figured for most people it might be rather boring. However I do have multiple screenshots of my attack on Belgium which I can share.

The first step is to use a supply truck on all my armour and air and even some of my infantry.

The second step, shown below, is to move the infantry in Luxembourg to the hex to the SW and then move the infantry in the hex SE of Luxembourg into Luxembourg and then attacking the Belgian cavalry with both of these units. Note that the goal here is not to destroy the cavalry. You want it retreat so you can follow it up later. For this reason i didn't bother using any air assets. Of course, once the latest beta becomes official you won't be able to do this because an attack on Luxembourg will activate Belgium.

[Harrybanana]

Next I moved an Armour into the hex vacated by the cavalry and then to then to the hex SW of this. I also moved an infantry across the Belgian border and adjacent to the two Belgian units further North (I forgot to draw the arrows for this).

[Harrybanana]

Then I attacked the cavalry. As I only had 1 OP left I wanted to make sure this attack worked so I activated the bomber I wanted to use and 1 of my best fighters. When I am attacking I always like to choose which air units will participate in the attack and set all others to mission only. I forgot to circle the air units, but I think you can figure it out as they are the only 2 not set to Mission Only. I was hoping to only retreat the cavalry again, so I was disappointed with the Shatter.

[Harrybanana]

Next I crossed the Meuse with another Armour into the hex formerly occupied by the just destroyed cavalry. You can see why if I had destroyed the cavalry with my first attack (rather than retreating it) than this move would have cost me 2 extra OPs.

[Harrybanana]

Dislodging the dug-in 4 strength Belgian infantry would not be easy, so I moved up a second armour and bombed the Belgian unit. The bombing unit and its escort are off screen.

[Harrybanana]

Then I launched the attack with one of my best ground attack air units providing support (red). The fighter circled in blue was not needed as there was no enemy air interdiction. Once again my goal here was to retreat the enemy unit, not destroy it. The reason I only want to retreat it is because I want a weak enemy unit in the hex South of Brussels that I can subsequently destroy and then move into the hex for less OPs. Note that had I retreated the cavalry into the hex South of Brussels than this unit would have been destroyed rather than retreated. That would have been better for me as the cavalry was the weaker unit.

[Harrybanana]

Then I moved in with 1 of my attacking armour and attacked the enemy unit SE of Brussel, destroying it. I preceded my attack with an air strike. In hindsight the air support for the attack itself was probably not necessary.

[Harrybanana]

I move up my mechanized and with my armour attacked the hex South of Brussels, but I forgot to take a screenshot. Finally I moved my last armour into this spot to make the assault on Brussels. But first I soften it up with some bombing. I made 3 Ground strikes but this is the only one I took a screenshot of. Even I was surprised by how badly I overwhelmed my English opponent in the air on this strike. But I did have several advantages. Since this attack occurred shortly after winter my opponents air units were still at low effectiveness and had not had a chance to recover. On the other hand, all of my air units increased effectiveness at the beginning of my turn and I spent supply trucks to increase this even more. Of course I also made sure that one of my best fighters was escorting. But probably I got lucky too.

[Harrybanana]

Despite the bombing the first attack failed.

[Harrybanana]

But the second worked.

[Harrybanana]

Final Positions and losses. Not sure if this helps anybody. Also I am sure this plan can be improved upon.

[baloo7777]

Thanks. I do similar attacks. However, my PBEM opponents have their Fighters forward and have given as good as they got almost every step of the way... I hardly see the Belgian (or Dutch) Air unit. And if my 4-1, 5-1 attack vs Belgrade succeeds on the 2nd attack (about right) with no infantry to absorb losses, I have come away with a step or two losses to my armor, and efficiency has sunk into mid 70's. I must just have atrocious luck... going back to 1.08 I was able to hit Lux and then Netherlands, and wait for a cold turn to take out Belgium... with the new 10u3, you have to take out all 3 in one turn. I have the same 5 armor/mech vs the Belgians and 1 more panzer that rolls down the highway in the Netherlands and takes a shot at 3-1 or 4-1 at the capital. I do see that you use your air often in full support for ground support. Since I tend to use it as bombing units more, perhaps that leads to higher (much) air losses. By the end of the turn more than half my 1940 air units are damaged, usually to 17 or 18 but a few to 19 and some to 16. The Brits/French seem to split the air losses at about 10 each and my German losses seem about 10 land and 12 air steps from the main attack (of course that's against Belgium/Netherlands/Luxemborg in 10u3).
Still thank you for doing this part of the AAR as it was both useful to see I'm not that far off in tactics, and to think about doing less bombing runs and more ground support, and also (a big one) to turn all my air to mission only to control the air units used better.

[ncc1701e]

That's great to see something detailed like this, thanks for sharing.

[Harrybanana]

I was hoping that we would be continuing this game once MM got settled; but the game has disappeared from from my "multiplayer" screen. I am not sure if that is because MM resigned or because it timed out because it has been about 28 days since MM played a turn.

[ncc1701e]

I have seen this too in a game. I have waited a long for my opponent and finally the game has just disappeared without any mails.

[Marco70]

It was the same with my two games with MM, no mails. I think it is some kind of automatic by the PBEM Matrix system.