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Here is how the CW elects to modify the table.

At this column, the Axis will shoot down the CW bomber 12% of the time and abort it 24% of the time, and clear it through 51% of the time. The CW will shoot something down 25% of the time and abort something 31% of the time.

Much better. Although it would be nice to have a fighter around to absorb a DA or DX result.

The CW's surprise point spending decision pays off.

The Finnish fighters search for the Sunderland long range naval bombers, but are caught by surprise and suffer heavy losses. The squadron is destroyed as an effective force, although sufficient numbers of pilots survive to reconstitute another squadron (the pilot "unit" survives).

The CW could spend surprise points to reduce AA fire, but as the AA present is insufficient to cause damage, it won't.

Instead, the CW spends its remaining surprise points to upgrade the bombing damage it inflicts, from 1 abort result to 1 damage result.

It will allocate this result to the convoy point. A damage result sinks 1 convoy point.

The Allies elect not to fly any strategic bombing missions this impulse. On to ground strikes!

Ground Strikes

The USSR gets up to a lot of ground strikes, befitting its air impulse.

Apart from disorganizing and hence pinning in place German land units, the USSR hopes the Germans will use up their fighters and reorganize units with their HQs.

If they do, these units will be disorganized and the German withdrawal will be slowed. If they don't the Germans will either stand fast to try to protect their disorganized units, or abandon them to their destruction.

The only fly in the ointment is the power of the German fighter force, compared to the Soviet fighters.

Here are the USSR ground strikes in Belorussia. The artillery covering the German hex is bombarding it as a ground strike. The Germans can intercept only one of the USSR bombing runs.

USSR ground strikes in the Ukraine and Rumania.

The Red Army's ferocious artillery barrage bombards the German strongpoint adjacent to Cernauti.

Soviet bombers, in the meantime, launch raids along the Rumanian line, as well as an escorted raid to the woods where HQ Model is located.

The raid on Model is meant to force the German fighter to intercept somewhere, or risk being disorganized (possibly along with Model).

The Commonwealth launches a ground strike with a Lancaster squadron on Vichy.

Vichy turns out to be a target-rich environment: an entire German "blitz stack" is located there, along with a long-range bomber that could conceivably muck up an invasion combat.

While taken individually the CW has but a 20% of chance of hitting each unit (because the forest halves the tactical bombing factors, which are then rounded normally), it stands a good shot of at least hitting one of them.

Rather than go through each air combat and ground strike individually, I'm going to run through them all and post the results of the air combats and ground strikes once they're done.

The Germans elect to intercept the air combat over their armoured forces in Belorussia.

The German fighter is so strong, the USSR has to send in their entire air contingent against it.

After two rounds the battle was inconclusive, with no significant results for either side. But in the third round of combat the Germans aborted the front USSR fighter. When the Soviets failed to reciprocate, they decided to call it off, rather than risk the destruction of their bomber.

In the south, the Germans decided they needed to defend Model.

The German fighter here, unfortunately, rolled a middling result and cleared the Soviet bomber through. Their escort mission accomplished, the Soviet fighters return to base.

The aircrews of this Lancaster squadron obviously did some serious training in marksmanship.

The CW ground strike disorganizes Rommel and the mechanized corps in Vichy. The loss of the mech corps could, maybe, have been mitigated, but having Rommel out of action for the turn could cripple the German response to the Allied landings.

The Soviet ground strike on Vitebsk is mediocre: only one German unit is disorganized.

On the plus side, because it's the low factor one, the Germans are more likely to leave it hanging out to [s]dry[/s] die.

Much more seriously, for Germany, the Red Army artillery bombardment disorganizes the mechanized corps and division here.

Although the Germans probably have a little extra time (because the Red Army has to clear the Axis forces on the far side of the river, first), this is not a situation to be in.

Perhaps it's because of the woods, but the artillery forces here don't do nearly as well, although putting the big SS armoured corps out of action for an impulse must be reckoned a good thing.

The AA gun in this hex fired against the attackers, reducing one of the bombers' tactical factors by 1 (bad AA roll).

In the end it turned out to be a bit needless: the hapless bomber pilots only disorganized the motorized corps. But firing the AA gun causes it to disorganize as well.

The bombing run against Chisinau, on the other hand, went well, disorganizing the infantry corps and division.

Perhaps most critically, the ground strike against HQ Model succeeds.

This means that the German units along the Rumanian front line are stuck disorganized, which will be a very, very bad thing once the USSR calls its first land impulse of the turn.

I would have to say that starting out with an air impulse has turned out very well for the USSR, although in fairness the lack of losses, and the key successes, has helped out here.

The only Allies who can make rail moves are the Chinese, who don't want to move any eligible land units, and the Soviets, who likewise do not want to rail move any eligible air units.

So, on to land moves - tomorrow. I'm done for tonight.

Thanks again. Really enjoying this and am learning much.

Cheers, Neilster

Land moves were easy, since only the Nationalist Chinese got to perform any.

(The Communist Chinese run on the Soviet action limits, so if the USSR plays a naval or air impulse, they do not move, and if the USSR plays a combined impulse, Soviet and Communist Chinese units split the limited number of land moves between them.)

Here is the southern sector. The Chinese moved a cavalry unit to threaten the resource in Hainan and the motorized division seized a port on mainland China. If the Chinese decide to built naval units, they can be deployed there.