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I don't think I saw either film. However, I am sure that I know the real correlation of forces - see a few posts earlier [8D]

Since we have gone off topic, I will add that I also am a huge fan of the Last Kingdom series. Primarily because it is a generally good story and it involves Alfred and his successors and is set in one of my favourite historical periods. Although a Canadian of American ancestry I am an unabashed anglophile. Another good series I am watching at the moment is Cursed, a completely revised retelling of the Arthurian legend on Netflix. I haven't read the books upon which either series is based, but I will need to.

Nothing wrong with going OT. After all, not all my photos of sveint are actually him.......................

I also love the Netflix series 'norsemen'- a brilliant parody. I believe the one on the left (a wonderfully evil baddie) is sveint

24 September. Nothing happened except the last axis troops carrying weapons left Dover. UK manpower up to a magnificent 27 per turn and is now at 55% , and an actual attack on surface raiders




Nothing happened on October 8 either.

Now seems a good time to review the active part of 1943.

I had 3 objectives in order of increasing importance:
1 Clear North Africa
2 A successful offensive against AGCentre
3 Retake the UK

1 was a failure especially the loss of 2 tank xxx,but forcing sveint to put quite a few German units there helped with the other objectives. When he stopped his c/attack I was able to send some troops back to the UK which helped objective 3 which was achieved in full with quite heavy axis losses. I think the Russians did well, In terms of taking ground it wasn't spectacular; probably no more than a dozen hexes inc only 1 town.However, it stopped sveint from having any useful offensive only 1 year after Barbarossa stated, and the Soviets did destroy a lot of units whilst gaining a lot of experience and strength. Army base experience is 50, air force is 48. All 3 countries now have '44 tech for the key metrics -inf (all assault), heavy armour, interceptors (escorts for Yanks) and bombers (?? Russian bomber '44 tech is a couple of months away).

All in all I think there was much more fighting and weakening of axi forces (at mid October G land forces were 1,468 -but there were only 1408 a couple of turns earlier and 1,700 back in February. The allies are all quite weak in '43 so I think overall that's a good result

Your thoughts, gentle reader, are most welcome.

It looks like Britain used Iceland as a redoubt for many of its forces during the dark days of the Occupation. Any strategic impact there? Would a withdraw back to Nova Scotia have made a comeback more difficult?

Is it at all realistic that the Brit economy is bouncing back after being fought over from end to end twice in three years and occupied for two years. With no foreign trade or aid I would have to expect urban Britain to be in the grip of a famine on par with the Irish Potato Famine and the industrial base completely disintegrated.

ORIGINAL: sillyflower

Nothing wrong with going OT. After all, not all my photos of sveint are actually him.......................

I also love the Netflix series 'norsemen'- a brilliant parody. I believe the one on the left (a wonderfully evil baddie) is sveint

We seem to have similar tastes. I love the Norseman too. The scene where they slew the priest and his flock reminded me of the Holy Grail scene where John Cleese slew the wedding party

It's a race. Sveint is ahead on points here versus historical and I have to give him the edge here on that basis, but you are now very much in this thing and can catch him.

Your biggest weak spot right now is the Med, I think. It is an Italian lake and a rich source of VPs and you really are not well positioned to do anything here. Obviously you are going to be landing in France but maybe you need to supplement that with an Iberian operation as well.

The Soviets you just need to do what you are doing and I think you've handled them very well. Sveint's losses on the Eastern Front have been horrific. I might consider adding some paratroopers to their order of battle now. If you'd had those earlier maybe you could've knocked out Romania. You have two free air transports sitting around waiting for desantniki.

ORIGINAL: michaelCLARADY

It looks like Britain used Iceland as a redoubt for many of its forces during the dark days of the Occupation. Any strategic impact there? Would a withdraw back to Nova Scotia have made a comeback more difficult?

Is it at all realistic that the Brit economy is bouncing back after being fought over from end to end twice in three years and occupied for two years. With no foreign trade or aid I would have to expect urban Britain to be in the grip of a famine on par with the Irish Potato Famine and the industrial base completely disintegrated.

Iceland helped a little but the port is v. small so you can't keep much there without readiness tanking. Almost all of my units went back to the Americas for R&R to recover readiness, especially during the stalemate in Scotland. Using massive numbers of trucks every turn would have been prohibitively expensive.

What would have made the difficult job of reconquest even harder would have been the loss of Scapa Flow with its 9 point port. This enabled my navies to be fully fueled at all times. The ability of ground units and a/c to sit in transports in the Atlantic for many months without losing any readiness was also vital.

When you recapture your own cities at least, full production of PPs and manpower is instantaneous.

ORIGINAL: Flaviusx

It's a race. Sveint is ahead on points here versus historical and I have to give him the edge here on that basis, but you are now very much in this thing and can catch him.

This game will be decided on a knockout. I can't win on points. At least I assume not. I haven't bothered to look. In our first game sveint probably ended the game with about three times as many points as I had.

I could not have taken Romania even if I had had paras. B town was unreachable because sveint had a unit in the port

22 October

Only action was the loss of 4 merchants, though the Spanish CA is now an ex-CA. It has ceased to be. The Italian subs continue to be an embarrassment to their owner- 2 more sank in a futile attack.

With a fully functioning UK, allied production is now 1,200 PP/turn, and the new Soviet army and a/f will be much more butch that the 35% -40 % experience units they started with 6 months earlier

ORIGINAL: Harrybanana

Since we have gone off topic, I will add that I also am a huge fan of the Last Kingdom series. Primarily because it is a generally good story and it involves Alfred and his successors and is set in one of my favourite historical periods. Although a Canadian of American ancestry I am an unabashed anglophile. Another good series I am watching at the moment is Cursed, a completely revised retelling of the Arthurian legend on Netflix. I haven't read the books upon which either series is based, but I will need to.

To go even more OT, if you liked Game of thrones, you might like to see a pic of the son of 1 of the GOT dire wolves. I think all AARs (certainly mine) should have lots of pics of people's dogs. Cats OK too!

5 November

The night when we have bonfires and fireworks to celebrate the failure of the Gunpowder Plot; the attempt by Guy Fawkes and his gang to blow up the King and Parliament.

My turn had unexpected fireworks too

And for the finale




That ship had had a charmed life, including surviving hits of 6 and 4 - though not at the same time.I was beginning to wonder if it was as unsinkable as the makers had claimed.

To cap it all, a surprise runaway in Russia means I recapture more ground this turn than in the whole of my summer O, and another city as Smolensk is liberated.



It is not as if he has that much running room.

19 November

Nothing happens except a few line adjustments giving me another half a dozen hexes or so of Russian soil.

According to 'forces' screen Italy only has 1 point of naval (must be a sub) and Kreigsmarine has 5 points which I think is the Norwegian patrol group. Anyway, the battle of the convoys is over.

I continue to drool over my build queues as UK/US are only using about 40 pts for upgrade/refit between then now. Spending 120/turn in Russia which is pretty much all for the a/f. This gives just over 1000 pts per turn for new stuff.

3 December

Even less happens, apart from the bloodless liberation of Bryansk

17 December
Just as uneventful...............

31 December

The year ends without even a whimper from sveint. These Vikings are resilient.

14 January 1944 and a belated New Year to all my readers

The year of decision, but first the current correlation of forces:




Wehrmacht slowly recovering. LW numbers are high, but they are on their own so overall Axis air cover is weak except in AGN/AGC area.All western allied troops at full strength and max tech. Russian airforce still have a few bombers needing upgrades and clearly 18 a/c reinforcements are still needed as I have 26 air units on map.

Building programme:

The allies also currently have another 600 points of armour and aircraft in build queues which will all be on the map before the end of May; apart from 1 US tank xxx which I have just ordered with the last of my US logistic points. I will need to max out my US lend lease next turn, tho' I doubt there is much, if any, spare capacity. ? I can dump lots of PPs on Canada.

Currently the western allies have about 300 landing craft, inc a few under construction, and more will be built. I already have about 400 trucks built or building between the allies but am planning for another 2,000+ by the end of May, of which half will be Russian. As the saying goes: amateurs study tactics, but professionals study logistics.