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Casualties

Here are the casualties after the surrender of France. The Germans and British suffered almost the same amount and the BoA is going decent.

Forces

Here are the current forces which show that German plus Italian forces greatly outnumber the British so that leaves lots of options before Barbarossa...

Malta

Italy begins the blockade of Malta by sinking the lone submarine group in the port.

August 30, 1940

The Axis declare war on Yugoslavia and immediately capture Zagreb with the aim to force them to surrender before the weather turns bad in October. The British conquer Vichy Syria. Axis high command debates various other options that could be pursued before Barbarossa:
1. Invade Vichy France
2. Invade Vichy North Africa
3. Invade British Egypt
4. Invade Greece
5. Operation Sea Lion

Not really sure what the best path forward is so input is welcome. The safest route is to just prepare for Barbarossa and ignore these other potential invasions but that would also be the least exciting...

September 13, 1940

The Germans continue the blitz towards Belgrade and set up to capture it next turn.

September 27, 1940

Belgrade is captured and Yugoslavia surrenders. The question is where to invade next...

October 11, 1940

Axis high command has decided to... invade Egypt! Initial panzer/mechanized forces arrive in Tobruk to prepare for the advance. The plan is an all out blitz to surprise the defenders with as many units as possible in order to capture it quickly and try to avoid delaying Barbarossa.

October 25, 1940

All Axis forces advance and make initial contact with the British defenders.

November 8, 1940

All out assault! Every Axis unit is pushed forward along with the majority of the Regia Marina to attack as much as possible and more units arrive in Tobruk to reinforce the invaders.

Overrun

A British armor and mechanized corps are overrun as the initial assault is a massive success!

December 6, 1940

After spending a turn to mostly recover and advance the newly arrived units, the Axis surge forward to the outskirts of Alexandria.

Battleships Sunk!

The British move out 2 battleships (Warspite and Malaya) to try to protect Alexandria's coast. This ends in disaster as the entire Regia Marina attacks them and they both end up at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea!

December 20, 1940

Alexandria falls to an all out assault and the massive mobile Axis force appears to threaten all of Egypt and the Middle East!

January 3, 1941

Axis forces advance to capture Cairo which convinces Iraq to join the Axis and prepares to assault Port Said.

January 17, 1941

The Axis advance is slowed a bit with limited frontage and rough terrain. There is some doubt in high command on whether the operation to capture the Middle East before Barbarossa can be achieved...

January 31, 1941

The all out attack directive is given and the Axis surge through Port Said to threaten to flank the remaining British units.

February 14, 1941

Disaster for the British! The Axis blitz up the coast, surround the remaining armor unit, and hit 3 British airfields. At this point, its just a question of if any British units can escape before the entire Middle East falls to the Axis!

The game has ended as Lascar offered his resignation as the Middle East has fallen to the Axis and Barbarossa is planned to start in the spring. UK was absolutely crippled with very little ground forces remaining. I think Sea Lion could have easily been pulled off and maybe even done in parallel to Barbarossa. The UK also I think dipped below 100 MM so would have offered no threat to the Axis and no support for the USSR in 1941.

Overall, it was an interesting game and showed that a medium/strong France commitment can be broken by the Germans with just a few turn delay. Here are some additional thoughts:
1. While a moderate BEF commitment can be dealt with, another 4-5 BEF units in France probably would have prevented it falling in 1940.
2. Its surprising how many units that Axis can send and supply in Libya to invade Egypt. I sent almost all of the Axis armor/mech forces and just blitzed through a decent British defense in just a few months. This seems to confirm that port supply in Africa is pretty unrealistic just as a similar post where the Axis had a massive invasion through Syria.
3. Surface fleet convoy raiding is pretty strong and difficult for the Allies to engage the German fleet as they kill something like an average of 5 MM per turn and can use oilers to supply in the Atlantic forever. The UK doesn't really have the oil to chase them around very long until the USA would join.

We are going to look to add some house rules to address these issues and start some new games.