Bob Flemin's MWIF AARse IV - Nice AArse

[warspite1]

Jul/Aug 1943
Impulse: 2

That is strange. I have gone to double the German factors and I do not have the option. Maybe I did not click the right button when choosing the Offensive Chit? I hope that is the case otherwise its a bug....

[warspite1]

Jul/Aug 1943
Impulse: 2

Well on that basis I can only make one attack - against Kursk - and leave the southern attacks for the moment. The Japanese are attacking a Partisan in Shanghai too.

Over Kursk the Soviets can get superiority in fighters, but would have to use all their fighter strength in the centre to achieve this. What to do???

Realistically even if successful the odds for the Kursk attack will still be high and if the Germans are unflipped then the Soviets stand to lose a ton of aircraft when the Germans advance.

What a horrible decision. The Soviets err on the side of caution and remain on the ground...

[warspite1]

Jul/Aug 1943
Impulse: 2

In China the Partisan is destroyed in an automatic attack.

In the Soviet Union the odds are 5:1 +1 on the Assault Table...

...its a 3(4). The city is lost (I do not convert to retreat), but the Germans are all disorganised. That is a blow indeed.

This attack hurts both sides. Timoshenko is lost as he cannot retreat, but the Germans had to use a fighter and bomber from Rostov (in case the Soviets flew in defence). This will impact any future operations in the south...

[warspite1]

Jul/Aug 1943
Impulse: 2

Curses. If the Germans had been kept face up then the Soviet centre would have by now been completely unhinged and facing withdrawal as the only viable option [:@]

[warspite1]

Jul/Aug 1943
Impulse: 3

Despite the Germans being disorganised the fact is the southern flank of the Soviet centre was anchored on Kursk/Voronezh. With Kursk captured, the Soviet position in the centre becomes exposed.

This will take some careful thought...

[warspite1]

Jul/Aug 1943
Impulse: 3

In the Med, the CW may have bitten off more than they can chew. They choose to attack the German Infantry Corps holed up in Messina. However the Axis have numerous fighters in reach and decide to make a stand, rather than give up Sicily without a proper fight. The result is that the Axis have the slight advantage in fighter strength going into this important dogfight...

[warspite1]

Jul/Aug 1943
Impulse: 3

Round 1 (Axis to throw first)

7 - AA The Axis choose which front aircraft to abort. They unsurprisingly choose the Mosquito.
16 - AA The Allies have the same choice and make the same decision. The G.55 is aborted.

Round 2

9 - No Effect
3 - AX The Allies choose which front aircraft to destroy (the pilot survives). The front fighter is once again the choice.

The advantage swings to the Allies - although the odds are even as the difference is less than one.

Round 3

12 - AC The Axis have to clear through a bomber. They choose the Wellington.
19 - AX PX The Allies once again choose the enemy fighter to abort (the pilot is killed)

The Axis have been unlucky to say the least here (shades of AAR 1 and the Luftwaffe!). With a differential of 2 the Axis have little choice but to withdraw or face the prospect of having nothing to defend the mainland with....

[warspite1]

Jul/Aug 1943
Impulse: 3

And so to the two attacks:

1. Sicily
2. Libya

The Libyan attack to mop up the remnants of the Italian Army in that colony is a 3:1 (thanks to Fractional Odds no modifiers on the Blitz Table.....

...7 The defender loses a unit and the survivor retreats. All CW units are disorganised. I stupidly put Wavell in the attack which means he cannot now organise units to finish off Balbo [8|]

[warspite1]

Jul/Aug 1943
Impulse: 3

The attack in Sicily is a 3:1 -1 (thanks to the intervention of the USAAF) on the Blitz table. The Germans seek to keep the infantry unit intact....

...its a 7(6) and the Germans achieve exactly that! The German Corps is able to retreat across the Straits of Messina and all CW units are disorganised.

The air battle was extremely lucky for the Allies - the land battles.... not so much [:(]

[warspite1]

Jul/Aug 1943
Impulse: 4

It looks like it was an error on my part re Guderian [8|].

So, with something of a breather on the Mediterranean Front being achieved, the Germans seek to put the Soviets to the sword.

The German position in the centre is not as strong as it could be. The Soviets have the advantage in fighters and that is putting a dampener on potential attacks.

Instead it is left to Guderian to try and split the Soviet forces in the Caucasus in two.

There is only one attack, the German troops are spread too thin to get decent odds on a second hex. Furthermore the Soviets have choice of table. And so its 7:1 no modifiers on the Assault Table.....

...The result is a 6 and both Soviet units are destroyed. This is a bitter blow as the defeated units are effectively the Soviet armoured reserve in the region.... although whether that was worth an Offensive Chit remains to be seen.

[brian brian]

If I were these Soviets I would spend the rest of the turn focusing on a defense of Gomel and then simply wait for the snow to fall….

[warspite1]

Jul/Aug 1943
Impulse: 5

The ridiculous shortage of AMPH and TRS for the Allies will ensure an Axis victory [:@] The Axis presence in Italy is probably too strong. I need at least four AMPH to create a large beachhead, but I only have two (with a third one on its way). I then need a number of TRS to land follow-up troops, but I have so few that if I do that then I am unable to get reinforcement from the UK, Canada, Australia etc.

I mucked up US Gearing so I have a numbers of TRS (as well as Essex-class carriers) that I cannot build quickly too.

I think I will call a halt to this game - its clearly an Axis victory as I am simply not going to be able to get a foothold in mainland Europe.

[brian brian]

The Axis end up with a lot of units in a no oil game, that's for sure. But I think you should keep going to see The Awesome Power of the Allies in 1944, if you've never seen it.

I think the US just built 4 heavy bombers recently? Maybe you can draw the Luftwaffe back to Germany. Which would be historical…and your game is about at an historical point right now. The Germans are stretching thin as the Russian funnel opens in front of them, and the Red Army will be growing in mass.

If you are short of AMPHs in Europe, you can go non-historical and send the USMC to the theater, so they can land off TRS. With the Royal Marines, Paras, BBs doubling every land unit and Offensive Chits you should be able to get ashore in Italy. With Sicily in hand for an airbase and a place to build up non-ZoC garrison points as fast as your limited lift can get them there, Italy (and it's all important action limits) won't be lasting long.

To get more out of your lift, sail port-to-port and use ATR missions or the lesser re-org HQs (Gort, Clark) to re-organize the TRS so they sail twice a turn.


On the other hand, it gets a little dry having to move over a thousand pieces a turn playing WiF solitaire, after the mid-point of the game, and it is always enticing to start over and improve the mid-game position for each side by playing a better opening.

[Orm]

I would claim that it is clearly a Allied victory. That the Allies can not get a foothold in mainland Europe during 1943 is not that big a setback. I think that the Allies will achieve extremely well during 1944. To bad that I will not see me proven right. [:D]

But with that said I think it is right for you to end it since you feel this way. [:)]

[warspite1]

brian brian believe me its not the pushing round of the counters - I am really enjoying that (I've never felt WIF was a counter pushing type of game) its just that I can feel there is no mileage in it [:(]

[Omnius]

Warspite,
I spent several hours reading your AAR and found it very instructive. The one thing that really stood out was the lack of submarine warfare and that the CW did not build a single convoy point during the whole game. I think you're missing out on a very important part of the game. Subs really can put a hurt on convoys for reducing resources flowing to factories, or supply to units abroad. Plus nothing like subs already in sea areas to put real fear into players wanting to move valuable ships into those sea areas.

Your not using the oil rules really showed how easy it is for the Axis to always use HQ's to reorganize units during a turn. That goes double for the Chinese. Plus you can then sail or fly around willy nilly as the Axis. I prefer the oil rules even if they are a real pain in the behind getting convoys sorted out properly. I'll be glad when we get separate oil tankers.

I thought your decision to garrison Cagliari with a valuable German mountain unit and an Italian HQ. You lost more quickly than that resource hex was worth. Now you have to rebuild that German white print mountain unit that would have been invaluable in the USSR. Plus you'll want to rebuild that expensive Italian HQ. I was curious about what you had done in Tripoli when you finally showed you were taking it. I was surprised you waited so long to get that trick done to set up Italy for the takedown.

I also thought you made a mistake not declaring Vichy France as soon as you captured Paris. That would have put the British ground units in France in real jeopardy of getting bounced off the continent if I'm remembering my Vichy rules correctly. Being late to capturing Paris should have made you decide against trying to capture Spain.

That was really interesting how you basically had no solid front lines in the USSR, especially in the south. However you were correct in thinking about getting that done soon.

I'm not so sure the Axis would lose this game. The US is just getting into the fray. The Allies aren't really in a good position in either theater.

I see you are very enamored with those expensive carriers and BB's. Not only did you not build transports and amphibious hips soon enough you forgot that the most important ship in any navy is the lowly cruiser. Good for ASW but even more important for taking losses. If you ever play someone who uses subs prolifically and well you're in big trouble. Especially if they trash a sea area loaded with convoy points that gets emptied. Air is great for ASW, until the weather turns stormy and then they're worthless.

I thought your initial plan for China as the Japanese was odd in that you tried to attack Changsa from the north and west rather than a more frontal assault that wouldn't be across rivers. However you certainly laid the Chinese Nationalists low, up until the Communist Chinese came roaring out because you didn't guard well against that.

It looks like you didn't take Denmark on the first turn to close the Baltic to force the CW player to have to decide between a naval move or a ground move to move Polish ground units. I thought the stack of units north of Warsaw/Lodz was a big mistake. That hex will have to attack across the river so better to have units in hexes south of those cities. Plus you left a huge hole in the Polish line to the south and west that made encircling the units in that line way too easy.

I take it you completely ignored Ethiopia. As Italy I love to transport the good infantry unit and supply unit out on the first turn. I drop the supply off in Tripoli where it can be useful to put units in supply for a turn. I usually drop off the infantry unit in Italy.

A shame that you decided to end the game, it would have been interesting to see how it developed.

Omnius

[brian brian]

ORIGINAL: Omnius

Subs really can put a hurt on convoys for reducing resources flowing to factories, or supply to units abroad. Plus nothing like subs already in sea areas to put real fear into players wanting to move valuable ships into those sea areas.

the most important ship in any navy is the lowly cruiser. Good for ASW but even more important for taking losses.

I would like to note that I always hope players of the game World in Flames never take away from the experience that the key to ASW defense in WWII was the Cruisers. I'm sure warspite1 understands that perfectly. In WiF, using the surface combat ship counters for ASW purposes is just a playability fudge and nothing more; it has no basis in reality. British Cruisers had to sit in port at times for lack of their own ASW escort, which was always busy defending convoys.

And in WiF, players don't fear sending capital ships into a zone with enemy SUBs any more than one with enemy surface units. They might lose a big surprise roll once in a while, but really only a good amount of enemy air-to-sea factors will really hurt you. Any power with Battleships available will gladly use the factors on their BBs vs SUBs if given a chance in the game, and the SUBs will sink in droves. Historical SUBs sank a far higher number of capital ships than you will see in a typical game of WiF.

SUBs can work in WiF however. The US can easily afford the action limit costs to achieve historical results with them. That is more difficult for the Axis, as the Germans have a difficult decision giving up an impulse of land maneuver on the eastern front just to press the attack with their U-Boats. But it can be done, or it can be gamed by using Italian SUBs. Players have long requested relief from the action limit bottleneck on invading Russia and attacking in the Atlantic; the limits have been loosed only a little over time. You still have to choose how to wage the war, and that is the point of the game - the decisions are tough. I think just a little too tough, in this regard.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Omnius

Warspite,
I spent several hours reading your AAR and found it very instructive. The one thing that really stood out was the lack of submarine warfare and that the CW did not build a single convoy point during the whole game. I think you're missing out on a very important part of the game. Subs really can put a hurt on convoys for reducing resources flowing to factories, or supply to units abroad. Plus nothing like subs already in sea areas to put real fear into players wanting to move valuable ships into those sea areas.

Your not using the oil rules really showed how easy it is for the Axis to always use HQ's to reorganize units during a turn. That goes double for the Chinese. Plus you can then sail or fly around willy nilly as the Axis. I prefer the oil rules even if they are a real pain in the behind getting convoys sorted out properly. I'll be glad when we get separate oil tankers.

I thought your decision to garrison Cagliari with a valuable German mountain unit and an Italian HQ. You lost more quickly than that resource hex was worth. Now you have to rebuild that German white print mountain unit that would have been invaluable in the USSR. Plus you'll want to rebuild that expensive Italian HQ. I was curious about what you had done in Tripoli when you finally showed you were taking it. I was surprised you waited so long to get that trick done to set up Italy for the takedown.

I also thought you made a mistake not declaring Vichy France as soon as you captured Paris. That would have put the British ground units in France in real jeopardy of getting bounced off the continent if I'm remembering my Vichy rules correctly. Being late to capturing Paris should have made you decide against trying to capture Spain.

That was really interesting how you basically had no solid front lines in the USSR, especially in the south. However you were correct in thinking about getting that done soon.

I'm not so sure the Axis would lose this game. The US is just getting into the fray. The Allies aren't really in a good position in either theater.

I see you are very enamored with those expensive carriers and BB's. Not only did you not build transports and amphibious hips soon enough you forgot that the most important ship in any navy is the lowly cruiser. Good for ASW but even more important for taking losses. If you ever play someone who uses subs prolifically and well you're in big trouble. Especially if they trash a sea area loaded with convoy points that gets emptied. Air is great for ASW, until the weather turns stormy and then they're worthless.

I thought your initial plan for China as the Japanese was odd in that you tried to attack Changsa from the north and west rather than a more frontal assault that wouldn't be across rivers. However you certainly laid the Chinese Nationalists low, up until the Communist Chinese came roaring out because you didn't guard well against that.

It looks like you didn't take Denmark on the first turn to close the Baltic to force the CW player to have to decide between a naval move or a ground move to move Polish ground units. I thought the stack of units north of Warsaw/Lodz was a big mistake. That hex will have to attack across the river so better to have units in hexes south of those cities. Plus you left a huge hole in the Polish line to the south and west that made encircling the units in that line way too easy.

I take it you completely ignored Ethiopia. As Italy I love to transport the good infantry unit and supply unit out on the first turn. I drop the supply off in Tripoli where it can be useful to put units in supply for a turn. I usually drop off the infantry unit in Italy.

A shame that you decided to end the game, it would have been interesting to see how it developed.

Omnius

warspite1

Omnius thanks for taking the time and trouble to read my rambling. I would respond to your points as follows:

- Convoy and Sub warfare. I purposely did not include too much of this (a couple of attacks in the Med and one in the Pacific) because of the problems that were still being encountered with this aspect of the game when I started AARse IV. AARse V will attempt to bring convoys and anti-shipping warfare (through subs and aircraft) into play as I am hoping the recent bug fixes have helped here.

- I used the oil rule in AARse I and it was a disaster. I have no doubt that things are better but there is sooo much to learn about the basic game before bringing that into play. AARse V will NOT feature oil.

- Cagliari - yes I mentioned my mistake at the time. To make the garrison effective I needed a couple of white print units - I did not necessarily need a MTN and I certainly did not need an ARM HQ!

- Again, the Vichy situation was not planned and was a childish spur of the moment response to having downloaded the Spanish and Portugese counters from WarHunter [:D]

- I maintained solid lines in the USSR as long as I could - the units in the south disappeared at one point and I was scrabbling for any units never mind a solid line!! I am sure I could have retreated quicker (but not convinced that my strategy was wrong - the Germans suffered few really bad throws) with the Soviets, but I will look at this in the next AARse.

- Well you probably have more experience at the game than me, but from where I was sitting I was getting a log jam of units in the Med and no ability to land them - and make the landing stick - on the mainland. The Soviets were starting to get parity with the Germans, but the Germans were still strong and the slightest mistake would be punished severely. That combined with the Med situation (and US naval Gearing) meant that I believe the continuation of the game would have not been hugely interesting or fun.

- Yes as I realised and mentioned a billion times that I did not build enough TRS and AMPH [:D] I disagree on the cruisers as I built plenty of them too (though by no means all).

- Yes, China is still a problem for me and one I need to play much much better [:)]

- The decision not to attack Denmark was because the focus, until the aberration with Spain, was a historical focus. As this seems to be de rigeur for Axis players, I will adopt this in AARse V.

- Not sure what I did wrong in Poland in terms of time taken to defeat the Polish Army.

- Yes I completely ignored Ethiopia and if I am brutally honest its because I literally forgot all about it. I am playing with supply units but did not read up on their use. I will do so for AARse V

-

[brian brian]

In Ethiopia … playing the CW: if the Italians send a TRS through the Suez Canal on the first turn I will gladly trade a likely lost USE Chit (perhaps unless the Allies are sitting on a 5, 4, 4 or something similar) for a 100% guarantee of reducing the Axis lift in the Med by 50%. In other words, I would DOW on the next impulse. Maybe the Italians were planning on sending both through to pick up the supply unit and the INF there, but I wouldn't wait to find out, as they might choose to risk only one TRS per turn to get both units.

For the Italians, if the CW didn't draw any TERR units in the region, I just walk the supply unit to Libya. In an oil game, the British can ground strike it and it will never re-organize without tracing to oil, otherwise they have to chase it if they can, and the Libyan camel unit might ride out to screen / escort it. I think we have finally got all the rules on that figured out. The supply unit is always in supply, so it never flips / gets dis-organized for moving without tracing to a primary supply source. However it doesn't change hex control as it moves, so if it gets flipped by enemy bombers it's stuck there if using the oil rule.

I really look forward to playing a new game with the new Khaki in Flames counters (adds the Italian Red Sea Flotilla counter and allows use during war I believe) and the new WiF8 rules, in terms of this area of the map. Towards the end of Avalon Hill, a mod came out for Third Reich that covered East Africa, but it would still cost 15 BRP to attack anything on the extra map, so that never happened. Games just seem to have a hard time making things go in what was a fairly active theater of war for a few years there.

You can play a great game of World in Flames just using the off-map boxes on the paper map for most of Africa. Even with a full map of Africa, the events there will have negligible impact on the war as a whole in a majority of games. But the little micro-wars there are a fun part of the game. Maybe the Master Edition, division level game of WiF would improve that some, if it ever comes out.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: brian brian

In Ethiopia … playing the CW: if the Italians send a TRS through the Suez Canal on the first turn I will gladly trade a likely lost USE Chit (perhaps unless the Allies are sitting on a 5, 4, 4 or something similar) for a 100% guarantee of reducing the Axis lift in the Med by 50%. In other words, I would DOW on the next impulse. Maybe the Italians were planning on sending both through to pick up the supply unit and the INF there, but I wouldn't wait to find out, as they might choose to risk only one TRS per turn to get both units.

For the Italians, if the CW didn't draw any TERR units in the region, I just walk the supply unit to Libya. In an oil game, the British can ground strike it and it will never re-organize without tracing to oil, otherwise they have to chase it if they can, and the Libyan camel unit might ride out to screen / escort it. I think we have finally got all the rules on that figured out. The supply unit is always in supply, so it never flips / gets dis-organized for moving without tracing to a primary supply source. However it doesn't change hex control as it moves, so if it gets flipped by enemy bombers it's stuck there if using the oil rule.

I really look forward to playing a new game with the new Khaki in Flames counters (adds the Italian Red Sea Flotilla counter and allows use during war I believe) and the new WiF8 rules, in terms of this area of the map. Towards the end of Avalon Hill, a mod came out for Third Reich that covered East Africa, but it would still cost 15 BRP to attack anything on the extra map, so that never happened. Games just seem to have a hard time making things go in what was a fairly active theater of war for a few years there.

You can play a great game of World in Flames just using the off-map boxes on the paper map for most of Africa. Even with a full map of Africa, the events there will have negligible impact on the war as a whole in a majority of games. But the little micro-wars there are a fun part of the game. Maybe the Master Edition, division level game of WiF would improve that some, if it ever comes out.

warspite1

I think the scale of WIF/MWIF probably just does not work for the East African theatre to any historical level, but hey! its WIF/MWIF so that's fine [;)]