TAIFUN (Axis) vs smckechnie (Allies) Full game 1939

[Taifun]

February 1943
Crossing Iran, the Germans head towards Iraq and the Persian Gulf.

[Taifun]

May 7 1943
Some reflections about the War in the East. As Scott pointed out to me these were some of the Key elements:

1. Keeping Russian and US mobilization low early on.
2. Putting diplomacy towards Finland (once the Allies got 3 consecutive hits). Lots of people would not have done that, that was fairly important.
3. Sending forces to Finland to retake northern port. At the time I thought that it was a waste of resources.

...
4. Made huge mistake in not defending Rostov and oil fields with set defenses. Probably would not have mattered, but should have done that.
5. Didn't press Royal Navy attack on Murmansk convoy when I should have. Gave uboats room to operate, when I could have jammed them up.

[John B.]

Very interesting AAR. Thanks!

[Taifun]

The game ended here as my opponent resigned with the USSR surrender. I would like to thank Scott for his time and to remark that he is a great opponent and a true gentleman, never using gamely moves during the whole game.


Final shot from the game, the painful losses:

[BillRunacre]

Thanks for taking the time to make this very interesting AAR Taifun!

[Cpuncher]

ORIGINAL: Taifun

Final shot from the game, the painful losses:

I can see how brutal the war for the Russians had been. I'm a bit curious about the tank losses on both sides. The Axis managed to not lose a single tank!, while the Russians only lost a few. In one of my previous war, my Allies lost about 50 armored units of all kinds and my opponent the Germans lost close to 20. Most of my tanks reformed over and over again. I'd assume both sides always focus on killing each others' tanks, and you can't always hide them behind a screen if you want to use them fully.

[smckechnie]

I will post a number of comments on this game starting with this post.

Defending Russia against an elite player is very difficult. In fact, in talking with some of the elite players, they do x moves on Russia and then just pray that the opponent makes a mistake. I am going to post a new defending Russia post for ideas on how to better defend Russia.

What I was trying to do in Russia was to give ground so that the Soviets could get to level 2 inf, 2 AA and lots of units in order to take on the Germans in 1942. This strategy actually worked around Leningrad and Moscow, but I failed to put up a significant defense in the Caucasus. I should have put up some heavy defenses around Rostov. The failure to do this led to the Caucasus being overrun by the ridiculous 1 level supply panzer units that still can move 5 hexes.

Entering into 1942, the Russians held Leningrad, Moscow, and Stalingrad. They had achieved my goal of getting 2 level two inf and AA guns, but MPPs got crushed by no Murmansk, the Caucasus, and no MPPs through the Far East because Japan attacked. Taifun, actually did not throw his forces at Leningrad or Moscow until he had hit level 3 tanks and moved forces around to overwhelm the Russian Moscow defenses. I looked for times to counterattack with anti-tank and tank units, but he kept the tank units at arms length and when he did attack the units were basically invincible. Play by me here should have been better and will be on future games.

[smckechnie]

Naval warfare in the game was really an overall disaster for the allies.

1. The axis strategy was to max out sub research. This doesn’t guarantee success, but if the allies get behind on ASW research like I did, this can be really bad for the allies.
2. It now appears that a very good axis strategy is to bring out Italian fleet from the med have those units scout for the Germans early on, but then combine them with German surface and sub forces to destroy any allied fleet units that are isolated. This is like the 3d or 4th game that I have seen this tactic done and it really means that the allied Navies need to group themselves into larger task forces or risk piecemeal destruction.
3. Against any of the elite players, I think that you are taking a big chance on not doing ASW research early. A level 2 sub against any allied ship with 0 ASW will get slaughtered. I am not sure about how many ships I lost to subs, but it had to be close to half or more of the allied casualties.
4. On a positive note, early on,I did form a task force to patrol the Atlantic and did catch two of his German cruisers and sink them. I did also pretty much sink most of the German surface forces.
5. I do think that my failure to have a better overall Naval strategy for the allies cost me the game.

[smckechnie]

In the Pacific theatre:

1. I had a really good defense of China, but part of the reason for that in hindsight was that Taifun was building this large Air Force, with lots of research going to tac air, long range flight, and strategic bombers?
2. Do not get behind on fighter research as the western allies is the takeaway here.
3. I had two American HQ’s in Burma and India. Wainwright escaped the Philippines and one that I built and sent to the region before hostilities. The plan was to send bombers, tac air, and fighters to help the Chinese and defend India. Because I failed to keep pace with fighter research this plan got blown out of the water. He must have had 2-3 jap fighters built too.
4. Normally if an opponent kinda of messes up the attack in the Pacific, it is hard to recover. Well that is not the case if you have level 2 or 3 tac air, level 3 long range aircraft, and position ground forces correctly. The tac air, maritime bombers, and fighters were able to help him capture DEI, Malaysia, Borneo, Thailand, and Sarawak after the japs initially failed to take any of those in the opening stages of war in the Pacific. The only saving grace was that he was busy doing that and not attacking India, which he would have been doing had the Japs had a great opening attack in the Pacific.
5. One thing that I did learn was that to cut off supplies coming out of the DEI, you have to hit both of the ports below 5.
6. I thought about continuing the game because of the pacific even after Russia surrendering, because I had 8 carriers and massive navy in the Pacific. Ground forces were significant too. I decided against this because Jap morale was so high from conquest of Russia. The IJN wasn’t that big actually.

[Taifun]

Great analysis Scott,

Defending the USSR is very difficult. I think that in the game the USSR is not strong enough, that more reserves should be available in the queue during the crucial autumn 1941. I did like a lot our Pacific camping and would have loved to see how the Japanese could defend their conquest against your forces, and I must admit that my navy was small with only 4 carriers and 1 sub... When the game finished I had 3 Japanese fighter wings and lots of bombers (can not recall how many). But Germany had 10 U-Boote (I bought 3 new ones) level 4 and level 5 on its way...

Great game, We should replay again!

[John B.]

Thanks to both of you for a great AAR!