Solitaire game starting late '42

[EUBanana]

Well that was a risk the Far East Fleet should not have taken, as both sides find each other but one side is a tad outgunned.

The precious convoy keeping Malaya supplied has not been noticed by the IJN though....

[EUBanana]

Thanks to the storm and lucky rolls the CW ships are both aborted. The Japanese actually come off a bit worse with a CL damaged and aborted and a CA aborted.

But the combat continues! And this time the IJN find the convoy + escorts in the 0 box and go for those.

[EUBanana]

CA Tone was aborted, but CL Coventry was destroyed and Devonshire damaged and the entire 0 box had to abort, so the CW really should have taken that avoid option. Malaya coulda maybe hung on but really not now I guess. Maybe Mountbatten in Calcutta can reorg the navy and send them out again but the turn will be over by the time he does that I assume.

[EUBanana]

The naval combat does indeed end then, there's some CW cruisers in the 1 box ready to 'stay at sea' but they arent relevant unless the convoy point is returned.

The Germans use their combined action to rail an antitank gun from Germany to the southern front. The Japanese inch up a bit closer in Malaya. And with their 6 land actions the Germans debark reinforcements at Riga, and rearrange their forces facing towards Leningrad.

[EUBanana]

The turn doesn't end, but storms continue in Malaya, and rain in Russia.

However Italy is good to go. Land actions by all the Allies.

[EUBanana]

Amphibious landings are the bit where I really don't understand the mechanics and need to read the rulebooks more.

Especially the notional unit. Landings which seem easy suddenly become instant wipe outs, and landings which dont seem much different do.

I'm also given to risky moves, pixeltruppen, advance! As Italy is deadlocked its time for such a risky, and somewhat clueless, move.

The port of Civitavecchia was only guarded by a division and mouse overing it seemed no harder a prospect to invade then any other Italian province. As the only other thing to do is battle over the mountains it seemed like an Anzio gamble might be worth it, especially as I got a big INF in an AMPH and a couple of divisions ready to invade from the Italian coast, with all the battleships unfired and plenty of air support.

Turns out you can add a notional to a division, so the end result is a lot riskier than I hoped. Much will depend on the massive air support.

[EUBanana]

Quite an air brawl... doesn't really go well enough for the Allies...

[EUBanana]

The Italian counter-bomber gets aborted, and they lose their one remaining FTR which isnt good for them.

But only 1 Allied bomber gets through which strikes me as bad news.

[EUBanana]

But a Dieppe is averted with a 14.

More by luck than by judgment... I assume if I didn't attack the port but the hex next to it which was empty, then the odds would've been much better. I thought notional units only turned up if you didn't have a unit there already so the division made no odds, turns out that was not the case...

[EUBanana]

Amazingly on a 10 the turn does not end.

So the Italians take a combined, the Germans a land and the Japanese a land.

Also amazingly both sides find each others naval forces in the Western Med - as Italy crumbles, spitting in the eye of the leviathan...

[EUBanana]

Despite a 3 and 2 factor carrier air bomber on the Allied side, heavy AA fire (lucky roll) means no damage was done, and then the fleets lose each other.

[EUBanana]

Germany is loathe to divert anything from the eastern front but they do rail in a cavalry to Rome, so there are 9 factors of Germans in Rome now.

The Italians don't have a whole lot to do, they shuffle a couple of units around but their positioning seems pretty good to me... for what its worth given they can be attacked from just about anywhere.

[EUBanana]

Surely as soon as it stops raining Malaya will be swiftly Japanese.

That actually looks like overcommitment to me given Japan is not exactly flush with transports.

I assume they will go back to China to the quagmire or maybe go for Australia given Brisbane is already in Japanese hands. But they won't get Singapore this turn so it'll probably be something like March 1943 before they can really land which will probably be too late.

[EUBanana]

Well, Nov/Dev 1942, Impulse 1 begins.

Notable deployments, BB Hood is back, repaired, the US continues to churn out materiel of all descriptions, Italy somewhat misguidedly gets a crappy SUB, some ship repairs and a new pilot which means a CR42. Germany gets almost entirely ground troops, enough to require 4 cities to spawn them all. Some are going to Italy. They also get one old FTR-2 having bought a pilot, that is based in Munich and is going to Italy.

Japan gets the Toryu fighter, Hata, who is going to China, and a GARR, as well as CA Shropshire which was captured at Brisbane and a carrier plane.

Russia gets piles of infantry and artillery and 2 FTRs, but they are really woefully behind the Luftwaffe and the board looks scarily bare for them even so.


Fine weather all over so impulse 1 is going to be a big one. No doubt Malaya and Russia will be hit, Italy will probably be OK as the CW needs to do a naval action first. I imagine the US will take an air action for the strategic bombers in the UK to get a good hit in.

[EUBanana]

Next turns's reinforcements...

[Orm]

ORIGINAL: EUBanana

Germany is loathe to divert anything from the eastern front but they do rail in a cavalry to Rome, so there are 9 factors of Germans in Rome now.

I suspect that if Italy surrenders, then the Italian front are going to cause Germany a whole heap of trouble. Maybe beefing up the Italian defence a bit could be a good investment for Germany?

Thank you for this exciting AAR report. [:)]

Edit: BTW, are the Allies, and Axis clear on the different conditions regarding conquest of Italy?

[EUBanana]

ORIGINAL: Orm
I suspect that if Italy surrenders, then the Italian front are going to cause Germany a whole heap of trouble. Maybe beefing up the Italian defence a bit could be a good investment for Germany?

Yeah, with that lucky amphibious landing there's been a bit of a reassessment in the German high command. It so happened that that turn a lot of ground reinforcements arrived for Germany too, so they are going to send some more troops to Italy for sure.

Edit: BTW, are the Allies, and Axis clear on the different conditions regarding conquest of Italy?

To be honest I've never got this far before so I have no idea what happens in the event of the conquest of Italy. I'm not playing with any house rules on the subject or anything like that. I assume if Rome falls the Allies will get the lot - hence why Germany was quickly railing stuff to Rome soon as it was under threat.

[Orm]

Well, the Allies do not need Rome to conquer Italy. They only need to beat the Italian garrison value now. Although they look to be a bit from doing that right now. This assuming that they control Tripoli. They already got a printed factory in Taranto. So rebasing some Allied air into Italy, and conquest seems close to me (although some land units doesn't hurt either).


Cut from RAC:
Italy is conquered when any 3 of the following 4 are true during this step:
• The Allies control Rome.
• The Allies control Tripoli.
• The Allies control any printed factory hex in Italy (apart from Rome).
• The Allied garrison value (see 13.1) in Italy is greater than the Italian garrison value there (remember, Sicily
is part of Italy).

[EUBanana]

ORIGINAL: Orm

Well, the Allies do not need Rome to conquer Italy. They only need to beat the Italian garrison value now. Although they look to be a bit from doing that right now. This assuming that they control Tripoli. They already got a printed factory in Taranto. So rebasing some Allied air into Italy, and conquest seems close to me (although some land units doesn't hurt either).


Cut from RAC:
Italy is conquered when any 3 of the following 4 are true during this step:
• The Allies control Rome.
• The Allies control Tripoli.
• The Allies control any printed factory hex in Italy (apart from Rome).
• The Allied garrison value (see 13.1) in Italy is greater than the Italian garrison value there (remember, Sicily
is part of Italy).

Ah, they don't control Tripoli. Though it should be quite easy for them to walk in any time they want.

[EUBanana]

Nov/Dec 1942, impulse 1, decent weather. Allies win initiative.

Nationalist China takes a land, CW takes a naval after some thought, US takes air, USSR takes land. I actually ponder an O chit for the USSR because crushing that German breakthrough seems good but the Luftwaffe gives me pause, the storm of defensive ground support seems too risky, and the Germans would throw it all in just to stop the chit.

Only naval air is a Vildebeest to Western Med and a Beaufighter to Cape st Vincent. the Sunderlands stayed at sea last turn, and Malta's naval air got wiped out over the summer. It's a bit odd as the AAR started after that but a huge air battle in the Med basically resulted in Italy losing all their Sparvieros and the BF110 escort while the Allies lost their P38 and Beaufighter FTR-3 and naval air so the Med is back to fleets not LBA at least for now. Msotly boring stuff, covering convoys. Ark Royal/Hood enter the Med intending to go to the Far East and help out there. The Canucks at Palermo are loaded onto an AMPH in the Med, which is filled with warships in the 0, 1 and 3 boxes. Some old BBs go to the 2 box of the Bay of Biscay to keep Bismarck bottled up.

Thanks to winning the initiative, supplies to Malaya are opened as a convoy point goes to the Bay of Bengal and the RN there goes to the 0, 1 and 3 boxes to try and defend it. But thats only 19 naval factors total and no air power, it'll cost the Japanese effort to remove it though.

A British sub goes to the 1 box of the south china sea from India for giggles. Worth a try. Unsurprisingly it doesn't find anything.