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RE: A musical global war AAR...

Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2016 2:31 pm
by EwaldvonKleist
Yes thanks for this AAR, interesting read.
Do you think a landing in GB could be possible to pull off for Axis?

RE: A musical global war AAR...

Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2016 3:47 pm
by Centuur
There are a couple of things which suggest that such an attack might result in heavy losses with no beachhead on the UK at all:

First:
I don't think the Axis can grab control of the air above the UK itself. The CW and the US are now producing what I call: back to basics. That means that they will get a lot of FTR's over the next couple of turns. Now, surely, the Italian and German airforce have far more FTR's available, but if they would pull them out of places like Egypt or Morocco, they weaken those frontlines a lot.
Question is: can the US profit from such an withdrawal in Morocco. I believe they can.
Apart from this: most of the Axis FTR's have a range of 3 or 4. That's not very far and that also means that bombers cannot get further than the East Anglia and Southern coast of England. Any aircraft flying ground support there will be intercepted and that means that there will be large air combats of which the outcome depends on the dice.

Second:
The Euroaxis have a total of 1 AMPH and 5 TRS available for transportation overseas, apart from the 4 ATR's. Now: that looks like it's enough, but with the Atlantic totally under Allied control, it's questionable whether the 3 TRS currently in the Med will survive rebasing to a port like Brest. Just as Germany has targeted the CW TRS going for Norway, the same strategy should be used by the Allies, whenever there are TRS sailing around. The Allies only need good search die rolls to wreck a couple of them, since they outgun the Axis at sea at least 3-1 in Europe. Any Allied admiral who aborts the Home Fleet out of the North Sea, if there are loaded Axis TRS in it, is a complete fool. In such a case, the Home Fleet fights till the bitter end. The CW rather looses a couple of BB's than to leave the North Sea under German control in such a case.

Third:
All empty hexes in the UK have a notional defender of at least 2 (and often 3, since a lot are in ZOC of corps) combat factors. You can forget about invading in Wales or Scotland, due to either corps in the non mountain hexes or the mountain hexes themselves (defender doubled to 4-6, without ground support and defensive shore bombardment...). That leaves good old England herself. If you add Allied ground support, you have a defense of 6 to 9 (defensive ground support and defensive shore bombardment added to the defense). So you are looking at a possible +4 to +7 at maximum for an invasion. That's not favourable odds, I believe. No, that's wasting expensive Para's and Marines. To take the hex invaded (or paradropped on), that's not easy at all, with these kind of odds.

But lets assume the Axis get ashore...
The number of troops the Allies can mass in the UK on short notice is huge, when they need to do so. Simply sail some out of the US or out of Morocco towards the UK and that's it. They can sail about 8-10 corps into the UK every turn. And that's not counting the corps build by the CW who arrive there, which get a very nice 0,5 times bonus on production. Can Germany and Italy maintain supply to the units in the UK? That's questionable too, especially with the Mosquito's arriving, which can easily enter the 4 box, protecting the Allied fleet. The Axis don't have the FTR's who can fly that far...

RE: A musical global war AAR...

Posted: Sat Jul 23, 2016 10:58 am
by EwaldvonKleist
Sorry for the delayed reply and thanks for your one. Just read a bit through the AAR to hear some of the music, nice idea Centuur.