Laurenz (Allies) vs. ToTheLastBullet/ Wahhim (Axis) Youtube Companion AAR

[Laurenz]

Sorry for not keeping up perfectly with the YT series, but real life got in the way. I hope the long in depth serves as a little compensation. [;)]

[BaggieMania]

Keep it up, I am following with interest for sure

[DarkGarry]

Interesting start.... Would be nice to see the whole fight!

[Laurenz]

Hi there has been a unforeseen break in my opponents YouTube schedule, but as far as I know the plan is to continue where we left of. I want to keep the turns somewhat synchronous so once the series continues I will continue posting my turns here.

[Laurenz]

Turn 9: Apr. 26, ‘40

On ToTheLastBullet’s turn he continues the Wehrmachts offensive into France, and this time they come in force. The German war machine descends upon the coalition forces like a sledgehammer, and breaks the whole front line with the exception of the well defended British army in Lille. The two BEF corps are destroyed, as is the French army holding the Meuse river. Metz is also stormed. The only silver lining is that the BEF army is not cut off. With the French forces struggling to deal with the Germans, the Italians march into Provence unopposed and take Marseille.

Also, it turned out we were a bit too optimistic in northern China. The Japanese stormed Chengchow this turn already, circumventing our fortifications. The situation in southern China stays calm, and the IJA starts to reinforce and reorganize for the next attack.

On our turn we are presented with an Interesting situation in the med. We get confirmation that Italy and Germany both have a maritime bomber. A lucky intelligence report lets us know that there are Italian medium bombers on Sicily, and we also spot the Pola (CA) lying in the Port of Syrakus. We have the whole French and about half the Royal Navy, including all 3 CVs, in the Mediterranean in strike range. From my scouting I am confident that the main part of the Reina Marina is in the Adriatic.



We decided to be adventurous, as we clearly dominate the area until the fall of France, when the French fleet leaves, and the Luftwaffe is freed up. We sink the Pola with the Glorious (CV), and then destroy the medium bomber with both the Ark Royal (CV) and the Courrageous (CV). The carriers end up in the Maltesian ports or at least under the protection of the local anti-air batteries, which we also upgraded. With that coverage and two of the carriers in fighter mode, I am quite sure that even if the German maritime bomber is in Italy, we are in a good position to not take major loses. Meanwhile the French navy goes submarine hunting, and screens the British carrier fleet.



In France Métropolitaine the tactical bombers are dispanded and the freed up manpower is used to reinforce the corps holding the eastern cities Lyon and Dijon where we expect the Italian forces to attack. Other than that, we follow our original plan, just a turn later, and retreat the remaining parts of the BEF as well as the battered British air force. The south eastern part of the Maginot Line is evacuated. One corps between Strasbourg and Mets stands very precarious but I decided to leave it there as this might make the attack on Nancy a tiny bit harder.



In China we manage to save the army from the fortifications in front of Chengchow, but leave behind a corps to guard the retreat. We also purchased the second AA unit. In the USSR I decided to be greedy and invest a second chit into industry research, although I am not certain if C&C would not have been the better choice. In the USA I got a second chit in LRA.

[Laurenz]

Turn 10: May 24, ‘40

In May the French formations protecting the approach to Paris from the North and North-East engaged in heavy fighting with the German forces. A concentrated effort from the Luftwaffe, and enabled the Wehrmacht to shatter our AT unit holding Amiens. This allows the German tanks to roll up the remaining two corps and the AA unit between them and Paris. This last loss was maybe a bit careless. Also, I likely should have positioned the unit to defend the AT gun.

The newly built Italian maritime bombers attack Malta. But the AA batteries deal some damage on the approach, and then the CAP of the carrier on fighter mode rip them to shreds and deal 5 points of damage. We take none in return.

In northern China, the corps guarding the retreat of the army formerly protecting the Chengchow fortifications, is shattered by a concentrated Japanese attack.

Starting off in the Mediterranean again, we are faced again with the decision to engage or be more careful. Since we will have the protection of the French navy until at least the end of the next Axis turn, and the Italian aircover has taken heavy losses, I decide to go hunting. While our carrier land spotting range is quite short, we know the approximate position of the maritime bomber (max 3 hexes from the attacking position, as it only flew a single strike). We use French vessels to confirm the location of the RM, finding them mainly in the Adriatic. Therefore, I spot with the carriers quite aggressively and find and destroy both the maritime bomber and the fighter squadron, leaving the Italians with only two branches off their military remaining. Depending on the success of the French army in the coming turn(s) we might reduce the number of branches even further.



Although, I would not get my hopes up just yet. German Panzer roll through the outskirts of Paris, and all remaining French forces are concentrated for the final battle for Paris. Also the colonial troops in Tunisia and Algeria are disbanded, as both Fallschirmjäger corps are in Western Europe, and I clearly control the Mediterranean. I hope to keep Paris for one more turn, as the good tank defense bonus of Paris should require infantry for storming it, but TTLB has surprised me with his efficient use of units several times now, so I am not very optimistic.



There are some engagements in East Africa, but it seems like no significant Italian investments have been made into the theater, so I should be able to roll this area up quite quickly, latest with the arrival of the Indian HQ.



In China I use the current calm to start to upgrade all relevant units with AA 1 as this tech has finished last turn. With the British I greedily grab the freed up chit in LRA again, and the USA invests in infantry weapons research.

[Laurenz]

The new forum takes a bit of getting used to, but god I love that I can use high resolution images without loosing the ability to use paragraphs because the post gets so wide.

[Laurenz]

Turn 11: Jun. 21, ‘40

In June the Germans take Paris and France surrenders. Apparently, 1 Hex is enough to take Paris with tanks if the whole Luftwaffe decides to bombard the city as well. In southern China, the Japanese continue their grind through the mountains and they destroy the army in the corner fortification.

In our turn we have some decisions to make. We say yes to the Free French, and no to annexing the Baltic states (because we want to keep the units spawning in the North safe). We also decide to raid the French navy, because we want to close the lid on our naval dominance.

I made a mistake IRL and did not take Screenshots of the Chinese fronts, although we ran our second counter attack this game, destroying an overextended Japanese army on the northern front with one of the experienced Chengchow survivor armies. In other news, the escaped German sub U-47 blocks the Australian port costing us a lot of MPP as we will not be able to get there before he reduces the port to 0. This also spawns part of the Australian home guard.

In the Med I made an ingame mistake. I wanted to sink one of the Italian BBs by attacking over the Boot. I knew that I had not seen all German fighters in action in the last round, so I assumed that there was fighter coverage over the Italian ports. I still attacked the port in naval/tactical mode with one of my carriers and lost more or less the whole airwing. That was dumb, but I guess this very onsided result was due to the fighters beeing attached to a German HQ, which I did not expect. But instead of retreating my carriers into safety, out of greed and frustration I decided to sink the Eugenio di Savoia (CL) which worked, but left my CVs in range of the Italian BBs as well as 2 Italian subs, which were lying off the coast of Libya. I tried to salvage the situation as best as possible by making use of the low ship numbers of the RM, and therefore maximizing the number of discoveries TTLB needs to make to reach my CVs. He should be able to get 2 BBs and 1 SS to attack a CV if he does things optimally, which should cost me a carrier. My only hope is that he lacks the necessary intel without an airforce and waits for the German planes to arrive before risking his remaining Italian ships. In any case, sinking the CL was not worth it!



The situation in East Africa is a bit more promising, as we only spotted 2 Italian corps, so I would expect them to basically roll over and die without too many issues.



For research we managed to get China the second C&C chit, and invested one chit each into AA and Naval Weapons for the USA.

[Laurenz]

In Depth: Status after Fall of France

The fall of France marks the end of the early-early game in my book, so I am going to take the opportunity to analyze the current situation in depth and evaluate how we have been doing. At the time of playing this I am quite busy IRL so our strategic outlook for the late-early game will have to wait until a later post.

To recall our main goals for this phase was to hold France somewhat competently, and establish the RN as the undisputed ruler of the waves. In China we had the goal of standing on defensive hexes and squeezing in the relevant research.

In France I think we achieved a bad to average outcome, for the resource investment. Taking into account that we had great weather for 1 turn, and then only clear skies for the Luftwaffe (if I recall correctly), so all in all average weather, I think this is all that we could hope for against a competent player. One extra turn of rain (especially in the last turn) would have given us one more turn of the French fighting on.

On the seas, the French ships did not find a lot of action, but they enabled the RN to do great. Overall we traded ~ 2:1 (in MPP) with the RM and KM (including the wipeout of the Italian air force). The Germans lost two CAs and one SS, and the Italians 1 CA and 1 CL, with no losses for the RN.The slight wrinkle here is that we might lose a CV in the next turn,which could stain this record a little bit. Nevertheless this means we can dictate where the Axis get to fight. The one exception to this is that a combination of the Luftwaffe and the RM might get enough control to ship in some troops to Africa, although I doubt they will find long-term success there. At this point I expect ToTheLastBullet to just focus on rolling up Europe and preparing for Barbarossa.



Losses Europe:
(All non unit shattering land losses adjusted by x0.6 to match replacement costs, which according to my tests is only done automatically for shattered units? It's confusing…)

Axis:

Germany at sea: ~750
German losses in Poland: ~180
German losses in France: ~660

Italian losses to RN: 1036

Allies: (only British as the rest was expected to be lost)

British losses at Sea: ~1100
British losses France: ~500








In China we have achieved our main goals, although they have not been set very high, so I would guess we are doing about as well as we did in France: average-bad. We trade about 1:2 in replacement costs, but factoring in troop shipment and CAP losses, in reality this is likely closer to 2:3. Overall we are about 900 MPP in the red in China, something that is not sustainable, but until now, free units should more or less cover this difference. Our industry is still relatively healthy and we were able to get all but the last infantry weapons of research. This should also enable us to improve our trading and reduce the bleed a bit or bind more Japanese resources.

Losses Asia:
(same adjustments as above)

Axis:
Japan:
Overall: ~1500 (adjusted replacement costs without transport or ship dmg)

Allies:
China:
Overall: ~2688





The other Allies have been developing to plan for India and the USSR, and in the USA I have been researching what seemed right.

[Laurenz]

Turn 12: Jul. 19, ‘40

We are lucky, and one Italian submarine misses our Mediterranean task force completely and the second just encounters our DD without spotting the carriers. With no intel, the Reina Marina stays in the Adriatic and we breathe a sigh of relief. Only the German maritime bomber is stationd in the Tyrolian Alps and almost kills our submarine scouting the Italian fleet. In southern China the grind continues and the second entrenched army in front of Kweichow is destroyed. Also, the loose Italian destroyer runs into our destroyer group heading for the attacked Australian ports and is damaged.




In the Med we go looking for the submarine, and stupidly run into it with a CV, which costs us 4 point sof damage. Avoidable mistake. But we bombard the sub down to 2 HP, and get our taskforce into a safe spot from both the Luftwaffe and the RM. We also get our sub out of the Adriatic with 2 HP remaining.



Since we will get Canadian maritime bombers via event next turn, I decide to divert the destroyer taskfores and hunt down the Italian DD, which we find, engage and trap with the help of an Australian CL cruising in.



With the UK we purchase a maritime bomber, with India we finally get the HQ, and in the USSR we can afford a chit in C&C.

[Laurenz]

As people who followed this game here or on TTLBs channel might have guessed, our game has come to an unexpected end promted by technical problems on TTLBs side. Honestly, I was quite upset by that (not blaming TTLB) as I sepent a lot of time on this project, and would really liked to have seen it come to its proper end.

Nevertheless, after having taking a few months break I decided I would publish the remaining turns I had already played and written up (the game ended after Allied turn 27). While the games conclusion is missing, I think there is still a nice storyline and much of the interesting decision making happens prior to Barbarossa anyhow.

[Laurenz]

Turn 13: Aug, 16, ‘40

On the Axis turn, we lose 2 Chinese Corps, one guarding the mine close to Kweichow, the other we suicided into an enemy HQ after Yanku was cut off last turn. The Italian destroyer tries to flee, but only hits the Australian CL.

This turn it is decision time: We agree to exchange the Caribbean bases for US destroyers (is there a downside?). We send the 7th armored some to Egypt, and we take the US planes intended for France for the Commonwealth. The maritime bomber then instantly flies to Australia in order to remove this pesky German submarine next turn.



In the North Sea German destroyers picked a fight with my experienced sub and lost, so now my destroyers attack German submarines in the area and win, thanks to AWS 1 we finished a few turns ago. On the French Atlantic coast we find an old friend, U-32 from turn 4, which made it to the newly annexed German Naval base of St. Nazaire, still at 2 HP.

The UK we go back to being greedy and buy a chit in advanced fighters and top up the chits in amphibious warfare which hit last turn. In China we purchase a Corps, and at the end of this turn we will finish C&C lvl 1 to complement the infantry warfare tech we finished last turn. Having accomplished our spending plan in India, we buy two diplo chits in Burma, as we will soon need an alternative route to supply the Chinese.

[Laurenz]

Turn 14: Sep. 13, ‘40

In the second August turn of the Axis, there is heavy fighting in China, but thanks to our recent tech advancements, there are no complete losses. There are also some minor naval skirmishes in the North Sea, and the Germans reveal their naval weapons lvl 1. The German marine bomber is back up in Northern Germany as well. At the end of the Axis turn, the Free French and Communist China decided to join our cause.

East Africa is quite quiet at the moment, but the Indian HQ will arrive in 2 turns. Together with the South African troops and reinforcements from the North, possibly including a second carrier this should be over in a few turns. The freed up troops can then help kick the Axis out of Northern Africa, and the Middle East should the need arise.



In China the combination of C&C and infantry warfare puts us on MUCH better footing against the Japanese. ToTheLastBullet deployed his units very aggressively, not taking that into account, likely also feeling safe due to my passivity the earlier turns. An army overextends in the North, a corps in theSouth. Also an ambitious attack across what I assume to be the Han river on Ichang takes place. We punch back in all three locations. The attacks are ok, except with the communist armies in the far North (they likely need 1 or 2 more turns to gain full strength). The army and the corps retreat, while in the center we trade about evenly. Over the last turn (Axis & Allies) the Chinese traded 2:3 on the defense and 1:1 on the offense with the Japanese (unadjusted for transportation cost), which overall comes out to be ~4:5. This is a stark improvement, and will make counter attacking a much more effective tool. Still, this is a war of attrition for the Chinese, so while we traded great with the Japanese, we gave them a turn of attacking. It was probably worth just letting him know that he needs to be slower and safer now, which overall should buy us more than a turn.





The end of the turn gives us the option to raid Dakar, which we decline since I was not sure if i could afford the strategic bomber which I plan on buying next turn if we take that gamble (we could have but still the right call).

Also good news on the research front, China getting infantry weapons 1 and India completing C&C and infantry warfare. This means we will have maintained the research gap with the Japanese once their infantry techs come in.

[Laurenz]

Turn 15: Oct. 11, ‘40

On their turn, the Japanese counter-attack our counter-attack and destroy one army in Southern China. Other than that, the Axis does worryingly little on their turn. This worries me a lot, but all intel suggests no Sealion is coming. There is no force build up on the French coast, the Netherlands are still independent, so is Denmark. Research wise it also does not really fit, as TTLB would have needed to research some awkward/ useless things to hide his amphib research in the charts. My current guess is that he wants to delay taking over other European countries to manage USSR & USA mobilization. Still I will have to keep a defensive posture in and around Britain.

In Northern (/Central) China we still get decent odds against the Japanese (I think we got infantry warfare and C&C while the Japanese have not yet), and continue riding the counter-attacking train. Sadly, we didn't manage to destroy the army, likely due to me making a mistake, forgetting to attach the armies to the stronger HQ before attacking. Other than that, we upgrade our armies with infantry weapons 1, which could seriously throw off Japanese offensives until they re-establish their tech lead.



In Southern China a rather complicated attack destroyed an overextended Japanese army. I am not 100% sure this was worth losing most of the entrenchment bonuses on this front line, but getting an army back to Kweichow again might take some time, potentially buying the city a turn or two before it falls (always when I make predictions like that, TTLB turns around an conquers the city). We get another corps to reinforce the southern front, but our ranks are getting quite thin down here. Also, I did not buy the next infantry weapons chit, but I thought the reinforcements and upgrades too important.



In East Africa we almost captured Massawa, and it should fall this or next round. Also the Indian HQ will arrive next turn, so the seemingly weak Italian forces will soon be overrun.



In Egypt there is little action, but a reconnaissance bombing run reveals only the inital Italian force at the border (although I have seen one transport heading for Lybia in one of the previous turns).



On the seas we attack and trap U-47 still blockading the port of Sydney. Also we engage two U-boats at the French Atlantic coast, although I am a bit scared a vengeful Luftwaffe is going to turn up any time now.

As palned we purchase a strategic bomber for the UK. In India we get paratroopers. For research we invest into a second chit oc C&C for the USSR, and a chit each in industry and production for the US.

At the end of our turn, Hungary and Romania decide to join the Axis, the 7th Armored arrives in Egypt, and the Americans deliver the first destroyer (the Montgomery) from the destroyers for bases agreement.

[Laurenz]

Turn 16: Nov. 8, ‘40

I should stop making predictions about the survival of Chinese towns. The Japanese captured Kweichow this round. In the North the Japanese redirect their attack away from Sian, turning South and threatening to cut off Ichang. Also the Afrika Korps deploys.

In Southern China the situation is getting problematic. The redirected Northern attack, while not very sustainable, threatens to cut off our troops that maintained the siege of Wuhan. In combination with the depleted troop count around Chungking this becomes problematic, as now is the time to retreat the central units to defend the capital. The Japanese even threaten to attack the HQ in Chungking, but I decided to leave it there so I can swap in the now upgraded experienced army next turn, reinforce it and maintain the entrenchment. Otherwise I fear there won't be enough rounds to build it up for the coming attack. The fall of Chunking is an important tipping point, opening up the Sichuan basin, losing not only the MPP heavy capital but also the second mine and the city of Chengdu. Together, this would be 44 MPP per turn lost; around ⅓ of China's income.



In Northern China the situation is a lot better and we get very favorable odds against Japanese units. Our offensive capabilities are not sufficient though to take pressure off the other areas. But I decided to send an army toward Chungking, as it will likely be more impactful down there.



In East Africa the Indian HQ finally arrives and we start the offensive. We are not in a rush and British MPP are needed for my homebrew, so the goal is to get 2 units next to the city where the HQ sits, and siege it down until the attack values get good against it. Afterwards get rid of the corps. The desert reconnaissance might come to cut off the retreat towards Addis Ababa after the fall of Massawa.



On the French coast our carrier based bombers find U-32 still at 2 HP in a harbour and finish the job they started in turn 4. We almost sink a second sub this turn, but U-47 off the Australian East coast is lucky and the weather prohibits the maritime bomber from finishing the job. But the U-Boot is at 0 supply, at the other side of the planet and encircled by a RN hunter-killer group (well with a land based CVL I guess). I doubt it will go anywhere.



The USSR starts to research infantry weapons 2, something we should really find the cash to do in China. The USA invests into advanced fighter research. The UK reinforces a bit and saves some funds, as I am not sure where they will be needed next.

[Laurenz]

Turn 17: Dec. 6, ‘40

This turn is not very eventful. In Southern China the garrison guarding the approach to Kunming is destroyed, and in East Africa the Italians retreat from Dire Dawi. In Europe there is movement on the USSR border, but according to our house rules there can not be an attack on the Soviet Union before April.



In East Africa I made a mistake and somehow only took a screenshot at the start of the round. In-game this turn went rather well in this theater. The carrier strike force destroys the garrison in Massawa which we sieged to 0 supply. ToTheLastBullet decided to retreat from Dire Dawa towards Addis Ababa. In principle not a bad idea, but the freed up dessert reconocaince was able to cut off the retreat just as planned. This means the Italian fighting force is now cut off from supply and needs to make due with what little the HQ can supply locally. I think the HQ will be able to distribute 3 supply, and should be at 0 supply itself? My goal here is to destroy all Italian units in bad supply for the morale boost and not to allow TTLB to repurchase them cheaply. I am quite certain that I will be able to achieve this in the next few turns.



In Northern China the Japanese attack our position, but at the moment it seems that our line (blue) will hold unless some serious investments are made, either in the form of a large scale focused attack - which guessing from this turn’s attacks, would be quite expensive - or some new units.



In Central China TTLB does not press the issue of cutting off Ichang. This allowed me to retreat all the forces defending it, which should bolster our defense of Chungking, at least in the short term. The sacrifice of the garrison on the approach to Kunming, allows us to upgrade the corps guarding Kunming. I hope this allows us to hold the city unless the Japanese march an extra army there.




U-47 hides in bad weather, but there is no escape. Still this sub has very clearly paid for itself disrupting the Australian supply for 10 turns. This is something I will definitely employ myself in my future games.

In France we make some bombing/ scouting runs with our planes (Germany bought an AA)
At the French west coast we attack the sub in port.

At the end of the turn we surrender East Africa and get the USA aerial and infantry warfare. Also we purchase a Canadian army and corps, and buy reinforcements in China.

[Laurenz]

Turn 18: Jan. 3, ‘41

On the Axis turn Germany declares on Yugoslavia and surrenders them in a well executed attack, revealing the presence of the majority of the Luftwaffe in Romania. This suggests the usual southern strategy for Barbarossa. In the north sea the Reich’s maritime bombers and destroyers do significant damage to the british sub raiding the Norway convoy, which will cost the unit its experience.

Behind the scenes it has been a couple of days between me playing this turn (and the next turns) and my writing of this AAR so I will focus on the areas I have taken notes on, so there might be units popping out of nowhere in the later turns because I have forgot to mention, I was moving them.

The only interesting theater this turn is East Africa. The Italian forces are considerably smaller than the Empires, Addis Ababa is at 0 supply, but the Italians are still supplied from Gondar. I assume the town will get garrisoned on the next axis turn, but there should be forces in place completing the cut off.



For purchases we get infantry weapons 2 and 3 diplo chits for Burma for the UK, 1 chit in AA for the USSR, infantry weapons 2 for India and for the US C&C and advanced tanks.

At the end of the turn, we get a small diplo success in Burma, Bulgaria joins the Axis, and we get two free units: the second destroyer for bases - the Castelton - and the British Army in India.

[Laurenz]

In Depth: Operation Barber Shop

So the time has come to go in depth on my homebrew: Operation Barber Shop (other considered codes names were Operation Razor Blade, Operation Summer Breeze (Grüße gehen raus an den Steinwallen), and Operation Octopus Garden)

The initial spark for this idea was the table on page 26 of the 1939 World at War strategy guide. I was surprised that UK minors had their own AVL build limits. After some testing it turned out that this is not 100% true, but as far as I understand it every unique flag has its own build limit (so Australia and NZ share the pool). But they all scale up with UK research. So instead of +1 AVL per tech level, the Empire gets +4 or +5 (realistically, theoretically even more). That means that it would be very feasible to set up what would equal an early D-Day.

The question then was what would be good goals/ timings. Goal wise it would need to be something where the German response was limited, else the successes would be short lived. This excludes France. Italy would be a contender, because if Italy gets surrendered when Germany is engaged somewhere else there might be an option to dig in. Another option is the Nordics. Germany does not really have the means to intervene there before they take Leningrad. The final option is Afrika if there is German commitment.

In my opinion the Nordics are the best target. The RN can quite comfortably force access to the Baltic Sea, and AVL’s can swarm both Stockholm and Helsinki in the initial round. This surrenders Finland, stops the Swedish imports, and likely also the Norwegian in a few turns. So the payoff are moral damage to the Germans and roughly 100 MPP per turn (and giving some to the UK).

The condition for this to work is that the Kriegsmarine is not very strong (free units for both sides + about equal losses is ok) and the Luftwaffe needs to be engaged somewhere else. That means the best timing is likely some turns after Barbarossa, because the Luftwaffe will be needed in the Motherland, and the moral hit from losing minors will hurt the Germans the most.

So the goal is to be able to surrender Sweden and ideally Finland in August ‘41. By that time having amphibious warfare lvl 2 is feasible, because we have 26 turns to prepare and on average a tech level with 2 chits takes 10 turns without bonuses.

Now I did something not well regarded in strategic planning, and did not look at what I needed but what I could get. Realistically I could get 12 LRAs (3 UK, 3 Can, 2 ANZAC, 2 Malay/SA, 1 Free French, 1 Rhodesia). Stockholm needs at worst 5 LRAs (this does not guarantee victory but this would allow 4 attacks + 1 AVL for capturing the water hex south of the city). 1 - 2 are needed to capture the choke points covering the Baltic Sea, and the remaining ones could be used to capture Helsinki and land an HQ if the first round in Sweden fails.

To make this less of a gamble I wanted a backup, and an insurance against the Kriegsmarine blocking entries with subs. The backup would be 2 strategic bombers and 2 maritime bombers with range 2 each. The strategic bombers can reduce the Danish port to 0, and 4 maritime bomber attacks would go a long way to pacify the Kriegsmarine. To make sure I would also need AWS 1/2 and naval weapons 2.

This is quite a research agenda costing 1125 MPP, and they all need to be more or less from turn 1 so that this can be achieved by August ‘41 with almost certainty. Also I need to buy a Canadian army and corps, a maritime bomber, a strategic bomber and a special forces unit, amounting to 1085 further MPP. Finally, all the units need to be upgraded and embarked in AVLs, costing ~1250 more MPP. All together this is about half the MPP the UK gets up until this point in the game, and this does not include the transports to Britain, nor the costs of maintaining the RN in a state where it can easily crush the Kriegsmarine.

Nevertheless I mapped this out in an Excel sheet and tried it twice against the AI, and I am happy to report it can be done consistently. The opportunity costs are large though: France can not be supported, a Seelöwe can not be properly defended, and if there is action in Afrika, the Empire is going to have a bad time.

Nevertheless, if it works out we would get a decent hit to the German economy, a temporary moral hit to the Eastern front which might let us hang on to more positions until the winter, and we demonstrate that we can hit with a lot of force anywhere anytime, so resources need to be diverted to guarding important areas. We would have to pay a price in American mobilization, about 15-20% for each attacked minor (so 1 if we only need to attack Sweden, 2 if we need to take Denmark as well).

Overall I think this could be played as a reasonable strategy not relying on that your opponent does not realize what you are up to, if the whole thing is delayed until spring ‘42. Then the US is in the war, Africa can be reinforced should it be necessary, and there would be resources for France and a Seelöwe defense. But I want to see where I can push this timing attack.

[Laurenz]

Turn 19: Jan. 31, ‘41
The Axis turn is unremarkable: Attacks in Southern China continue, but no units are destroyed; in the West the Axis buildup in Romania continues.

In Abyssinia we do not quite complete the cutoff yet, but there is really no way the Italians can avoid being encircled and the HQ ground down.



The situation in Southern China is deteriorating rapidly, despite our units holding the line for now. The MPP income China gets is not sufficient to make the necessary reinforcements. Things like the next infantry weapons chit will need to wait until we get another US supply line established, which needs a major success in Burma (maybe more) and we need to keep Wanting (I should read up on the triggers for the supply lines….would it be better to let Wanting get captured to get the supply via Ledo?).



In the UK our preparations for Operation Barber Shop (OBS) are nearly through the critical phase. All but the last two Canadian units are about to arrive safely in the UK, with the troops from Asia, Australia and NZ, taking the safe route through the Panama canal.

For purchases we get 1 chit in AA research and 1 diplo chit in Burma for the UK, and the second C&C chit, as well as a chit in AA for the US. Behind the scenes I was in a hurry playing this, so I forgot to write down the number of units, which will significantly reduce my intel on the German build up, as this would have been the turn the some units would materialize, which I now no longer can distinguish from the ones which have 1 more turn production delay.

[Laurenz]

Turn 20: Feb. 28, ‘41
During their February turn the Axis revealed the extent of their madness and started to shell London with their V2 Wunderwaffe. I am not quite certain what to make of this. 2 chits in rocket weapons and 2 upgraded rockets is about 750-800 MPP. I don’t think there is any hope of a delayed See Löwe, there are too few German naval or air force assets in the area.



At this point I am guessing TTLB wants to have some fun with the rockets, independent of this making his Barbarossa ~2 turns weaker. In other news, the onslaught of the Central Expedition Army in Southern China continues. 0:4 attacks against an Army in a fortification in the mountains during snowfall. Diligent readers of this forum may be aware of my opinion on this unit. Together with the attacks of another army and a corps the defending army in front of Chungking is shattered.

In Eastern Africa we finally tighten the nose and complete our cutoff of the main Italian concentration, destroying a corps in the process. This theater will come to a close soon, with a decisive Allied victory.



In Southern China we avenge our fallen comrades by destroying a Japanese corps. I am not sure this is quite worth it, but it felt really good, so I guess that's that. Our corps in Kunming seems to hold for now, and might continue to do so for some more rounds, but I learned not to make predictions.



The build up in the UK goes according to plan. Missing only the second canadian corps and army, and the strategic bomber still in production, we have assembled quite the landing force.
The UK will send 1 Army, 1 HQ, and the Rupert Force (SF), while from the colonies, 2 Malayan corps, the Rhodesian special forces, the Free France corps, and a Corps each from Australia and New Zealand, as well as an additional Canadian corps will join. In total we will have 12 AVLs ready in late summer ‘41, which should be more than sufficient to conquer Sweden and Finland in 1 or 2 turns. This effort will be supported by all 5 RN carriers accompanied by a wide array of surface ships. I am very excited to see how this goes.



With the UK and USSR spending on upgrading, the purchases this turn were slim. The US hit the research limit so I decided to purchase a carrier and an AA. With India I got a chit in GAW, because I just discovered they could get 2 tactical and 2 medium bombers. To support China I also managed to squeeze in a diplo chit for Burma from the UK.