Global War Solitaire

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The third attack is in Cassino, Italy.
It is a total failure!

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The fourth attack is on Bari, Italy.
It is a valiant success.

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The fifth attack is an air drop in the netherlands.
It succeeds beyond hope and threatens the core of the Ruhr! Unfortunately I messed up my screenshots!

To backup the paradrop, there are two invasions on the coast. Both succeed.

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The second landing in the Netherlands.
Once again I failed to take a screenshot of the last British invasion, in Denmark.
Depending on the objectives, this threatens Northern Germany (with an joining to the forces in the Netherlands), or it may attempt to conquer Denmark.

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The last invasion was in Southern Japan.
It succeeds well enough to warrant a permanent toehold in Japan.

[yvesp]

Within less than two weeks, the British landed in Denmark and Netherlands, threatening he core of Germany, and putting its whole defense off balance: no significant troops are readyly available in these area, which are protected by second rate troops: reservists and militia. The British also continue their previous push toward Paris, and they reach the suburbs. Still, they are not in a position to assault it : numerous German troops still hold the area.

In the south, the Americans succeed in landing in Italy, but they botch one of their three attempts, where all participating troops are decimated. This loss will prevent an early assult on Rome, which was the ultimate target. Still, holding Bari, a port, will let supplies and reinforcements flow.

In Japan, the Americans also succeed in establishing a beachhead on the island of Kyushu. This is certainly no good news for Japan. Still, Japan can consider itself lucky that no merchant ship was again found, despite the large amount of American ships in the China sea.

In China, in keeping with their strategy, the Chinese continue to advance to cut the Japanese supplies.

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France, Netherlands and Denmark at the start of the axis impulse.
Clearly, the situation will not let Germany much choice: it will likely have to take a land action!
Also note that most of the German air power is depleted. While the allies don't have a lot of planes left, they are in a better position than the German in this area. This shows the density of the action in this first impulse.
Also, while it is not clearly apparent, within the 23 German corps present in France, 9 are disorganized.

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Italy at the start of the axis impulse 1.

It is sufficient to rememeber how the invasion of France began to see that this small start may grow indeed very fast.

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Japan at the start of the first axis impulse in May 44.

The americans have chosen this spot because it is the only one that can't be reached in time by Japanese units in Japan. Strtegically, it is actually nowhere: it doesn't threaten the production centers, and indeed their is still a long way to go ; nor doesn't it threaten any objective. On the other hand, it was accessible precisely for these reasons!
And it is way better to have a place in Japan that always have to rely on the fleet, especially when it will come to air power. Of course, this will require conquering other places than mountains,and this is not yet achieved!

One of the problems tha Americans also see coming is the possible repatriation of Japanese units from China, which would make the conquest of Japan quite difficult!

[yvesp]

Japan sortites its fleet. If the search suceeds, they expect to inflict large losses to the invading transports and retard the next invasion by many months.

If the search fails, they will have the satisfaction of bringing Yamamoto and additional troops safely home, exactly on the required spot, Kagoshima, which is obviously the American target.

This time the forces meet, and there is no significant surprise.

The Ameriacn fly some additional land air, both fighters and bombers.

Overall, the air forces are roughly equal, although the US have more bombing factors and have a large advantage in AA.

Unseen here is the support of the Singapore British fleet of 18 vessels, led by 5 battleships but no carrier (they are stuck in Europe.)

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The first rounds of air-air combat are extremely favorable to the Americans.

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And this continues, until, at a 5 disadvantage in air to air, and the strongest US bombers already passed, Japan decides to abort the combat, with no bomber gone through.

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The AA fire is mostly swallowed by the land based Mariner. US planes will not suffer any damage.

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The result is 4 destroyed and 2 damaged Japanese ships.
The US places his choices on the transports, rather than the carriers.

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The actual result is best seen from the destroyed pool, where all Japanese units there have been lost in this combat.

The Japanese, having lost the most precious units, will decide to continue the fight: with luck, they might also be able to destroy the allied transports, and that's everything they want now. But searches will fail.

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France at the start of the second allied impulse in May 44.

The German lines are still pretty strong, and the western allies have not played any offensive chit this impulse, keeping them to break the Seine line, when the time is ripe.
The German SS stack west of Paris is itself quite strong (26 vs any armored attack), but could not be retreated due to the previous turn ground strike.
It is a tempting target though, especially since it shields a quite weak garrison stack (which could not be moved or shuffled either, again due to the previous impulse ground strikes.)

In the Rhone valley, things are pretty simple: The German have trouble retreating, but the presence of mountains and relatively weak American troops make attacks there difficult.

[yvesp]

Italy had a choice: either a land move, or a combined move.
The combined move could, with luck, cause the loss of several arriving reinforcements.
The land move would have given more possibilities to enclose the landed troops.

In any case, full containement was not possible.

A counterattack, while in theory always possible, would most likely have ended up in a disaster: the best achievable odds would be 2:1, on one landed stack only, but defensive shore bombardment would reduce that to 1-1, and additional possible ground support could reduce that even less. It would have been the only reason to make a land move. Quite unwise.

Unfortunately, the naval search in the combined move failed.

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The far east at the start of the allied second impulse in May 44.

The Japanese situation is now extremely bad.
The loss of transports in the previous impulse will severely limit the ability to repatriate troops from China.

Winning in China would require an uncontested access to the sea, but now the sea is dominated by the USA. It is difficult to imagine the "best" strategy for japan now!

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Near Paris, an impressive engagement of Panzers between the Commonwealth and Germany, certainly the largest in the war up to now. The large superiority of the Commonwealth brings victory.

The line of the Seine has been reached, and the turn is hardly finished. Some top German units have been destroyed, many second rate units are waiting the assault.

[yvesp]

In the Rhone valley, things don't go as well for the USA, except that any unit loss for Germany can now be seen as a victory in itself.