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Western Europe after the fall of Brussels and Belgium.
The weather has again worsened, with massive rainstorms drenching Europe. Ironically, as I write this, it is somewhat similar outside too!

ORIGINAL: DQ2004

A year which will involve the death of many pixels worth of units.

that's the proper spirit. order the pixels to Attack!



and Animated World if Flames, heckz yeah

A closer view of France after the fall of Brussels.
Neither side was going to do much in this dreadful weather.

In Egypt and the Meditteranean, tensions were rising.
But no guns had yet been fired.

Finally the Germans get some snow, allowing them to swiftly overwhelm Denmark.
Well, they were robbed of Schleswig-Holstein at the treaty of Versaille, and they wanted it back. Vengeance!!

In Poland, the snow enables the now victorious Wehrmacht the chance to redeploy to new targets.
Katowice is surrounded and overwhelmed, ensuring its resource is available for German factories.
Regrettably we failed to screenshot that, but thats what happened.

In Southern China Japanese reinforcements had arrived, and the Chinese soon decided that they were better off not being near the Japanese after all...

In the North, a partisan had appeared and naturally been placed at Haichow.
Most irritating, but anti-partisan forces were already being moved into place, so two corps headed up to Suchow to deal with the ungrateful wretches.
Meanwhile on the front, reinforcements had also arrived for Umezu, and he prepared to take advantage of it.

In the North Atlantic, the Germans had also taken advantage of the stormy weather to sortie into the Faeroes Gap, and sank three convoys (no screenshot).
However, that was when the turn ended.
It had been a disastrously short first two turns, and the Axis had not achieved nearly as many of their first goals as they had wished. At least Poland, Belgium and Denmark were now conquered! As they should be, of course.
The losses for the turn, were unsurprisingly very few, and of no real concern to the Allies.

The reinforcements for the Jan/Feb 1940 turn.
Of course, those Poles and Danes won't actually be turning up at all.

It is now January 1940 and to the surprise of the Western Allies a large German force has assembled on the border of Hungary.
Of course, there is a large force in Belgium too, but regardless of what happens in central Europe there's not much they can do about it.
They collectively shrug their shoulders and forget about it.
Meanwhile, a large quantity of fuel, supplies and ammunition has been delivered to dumps near Rundstedt's HQ.
Even though it is snowing, the glory of the Reich and it's revenge, cannot be delayed!

The French detect a large group of German aircraft heading towards their lines in Belgium.
Despite the obvious risks, they cannot allow this to happen. Every available French fighter is sent to resist.
Unfortunately the German Stuka bombers have a similar sized, but manifestly superior escort.
The proof lies in the results; the Morane-Saulniers are savagely torn from the skies. The reward for their sacrifice is that the Stukas are forced to abort their mission of destruction.

The German offensive goes in.

However in a disastrous mistake, no escorting fighters are flown to the scene of the battle, and a lone French bomber wing provides crucial support.
The result is almost a total failure; the only saving grace being that the French are forced to retreat.
The offensive has been an horrific waste.

So I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, what was going on at the Hungarian border?
Well, what happened was this.
Our new Austrian friends, who'd overwhelmingly voted to join the Reich in recent times (and who could blame them?), had made it pretty clear to us that in fact it was the Hungarians who were largely to blame for the failures of the Austro-Hungarian empire in 1918. So we could not have them as allies. Ohh no. And in fact, they had that juicy red factory sitting there pretty much for the taking, and well, we wanted it. And without the bothersome and rather useless armies and planes that might have otherwise come with it.
So to help assuage our Austrian friends from their despair over the Great War, we prepared for vengeance!!
And a great effort it was!
Tragically, yet again, the Wehrmacht came up short - we'll let the pictures tell their own story...

In Southern China, even though no one actually cared, the Chinese had decided to retreat from Chang-sha, feeling that it was no longer defensible.
The retreating armies left behind one unit, possibly the worst unit of the game, and it was duly surrounded and destroyed.

In Northern China, the poorly placed Nationalist militia unit, there to help bolster the communists (why would you do that?), was targeted and eliminated.

Mar/Apr 1940
Once again the turn ended early (unsurprising for Jan/Feb) and agonizingly for our vengeance, Hungary remained independent!
Thus the unit that was shattered plus the Budapest Militia arrived to hold up (albeit temporarily) the German advance.
The Allies won the initiative too, and decided to take out their frustration on a much more vulnerable (and innocent!) target: Italy!
A massive Royal Navy fleet sailed in to the Italian Coast and put paid to any alleged plans the Axis may or may not have had for 'Mare Nostrum'. In the force was at least three carriers and half a dozen battleships along with plenty of cruisers of course.
More RN task forces went to the Western and Eastern Med sea areas and eliminated the Italian convoys there, although they failed to find the one in the Italian Coast.
Unfortunately we failed to screenshot any of this.

But Bomber Harris' RN had decisively thrown down the gauntlet in the Med, ensuring that the Italians would start on the defensive, not the offensive. Vengeance was not going to be easy here...

After losing all their semi-OK fighters the French were forced to place a wing of lousy Potez 631s into the field.
They were lucky not to be shot down in their first battle.
Italy sailed its fleet into the Eastern Med but I'm afraid we didn't screenshot those battles. They were not particularly spectacular, or decisive. The huge RN fleet in the Italian Coast failed to find the small Regia Marina force and their convoys.
France at the beginning of the Mar/Apr 1940 turn in the Germans first impulse:

In the desert, the Italians began moving into an undefended Tunisia (Axis 2nd Impulse).