Matrix Games Forums

The Luftwaffe took high losses across all fronts last turn. The RAF had set some surprise air traps in Norway and in Greece. We also took some bomber losses to flak in Sweden.

scrolled down

The 4th Fallshirmjaeger did another airborne drop around Sundsvall Sweden the northern most Swedish city and captured it with medium losses.

the situation after attack.

turn 50 !

Rufus is playing a masterful defense with the limited troops he has available and their lower war footing. I have to really plan out my attack moves or I suffer big losses.

this is the starting positions for Greece.

here I decided to attack the forces guarding the flanks of Athens and move my forces into those positions so that I can get a better attack bonus on Athens and soften it up with arty next turn.

On the Turkish front I am pushing my forces across the Istanbul straights and moving into mainland Turkey

In Sweden I have Stockholm covered on three sides and had to decide whether or not to attack this turn or wait until next turn and soften it up with an arty attack. The commander of the 11th army requested that we wait but OKH ordered an assault.

this was a bad call and we took heavy losses with no gains at all.

again the flak in Stockholm shot down another plane that was attacking two hexs away. Thats 4 or 5 planes lost over Stockholm so far.

a look at the totals for the turn.

just wondering is their a possibility for Spain or Portugal to activate in this game

Spain yes  but Portugal is one of the rare neutrals.

its been 4 or 5 turns since I last posted.
So here is a situation report.

I can report that my days of fast easy victories against the west have ended. The west now has Infantry-II and Guns-II just like me and the battles are much more costly for me now. I am up against a very good player who is using his limited resources to the best of their ability.
My victory in Greece was relatively fast but I took heavy losses to accomplish it. Fortunately my method of logistic control works extremely well in this scenario and I am able to replace my losses within one or two turns tops and I can do it while my armies are on the move.
Norway is a separate continent so to get German troops and equipment there I have to either place the Armies HQ in a port and set a production center to send its production straight to it or I have to make the units and either ship them via air or naval transport. It isn't always easy to get a HQ in a port as they are far apart and I need to keep the HQ's close to my army for the bonus.
Turkey is the same way due to the two straights that separate it from the mainland and its out of reach of any German city for 100% supply the closest give me a 25% supply loss. So I have the same situation keeping my 7th army in reinforcements. But Romania and Bulgaria are close enough to send production straight to a HQ and I just last turn finally got their war footing up to 99% so they now fight as well as my German armies do.

Italy still hasn't woken up but i am using this time to raise its war footing as much as I can so when it does wake up it wont be totally helpless. I also have a force stationed on its border ready to move and support the Italians when they come online. This is more forces that are tied up and kept from helping with Russia.

The bright side is that the unexpected Norway,Swedish and Turkish fronts have forced me into producing more aircraft than I would have normally,so my air-force will be stronger on all fronts.
The down side is my Invasion of Russia is going to be about 2/3rd's as strong as I wanted it to be. I will start without anything for a reserve army and have to hope I can clean up Norway and Turkey in time to move those armies back to the eastern front to be my reserves when I need them.

Its winter now but I am prepared for it and had built up a reserve of supply that is working fine to keep me in 100% supply till spring. So I am able to continue my campaign in Norway, Sweden is occupied and that army is moving to help in Norway.

The occupied territories are producing a large part of my needed supply so I am still able to produce enough units with my German production and every city I take now helps me to produce more so I am still in fair shape for production. I am stretched right up to the edge of Germany's ability but I am still capable of aggressive actions and producing enough extra PP to slowly raise Italy's war-footing, but not enough PP to research any more tech at this time. I had wanted armor-II before my invasion of Russia but will have to hope i can capture enough Russian cities fast enough to switch some German supply production to PP before my lack of tech-II armor starts to hurt me.

I need to conquer Norway and as much as I can of Turkey before spring. Both fronts present the same challenges of keeping my armies in reinforcements and supply along with large distances to move over and capture. Fortunately the west has the same problem in Norway and I am interdicting a huge amount of supply and equipment meant for the western forces there.

as you can see my wolfpacks are finally earning their pay.
But I have already lost 4 subs and it will take me 4 months to replace them but I don't have the production to start until spring.

That city has been captured and I sank that Cruiser with no losses for the Luftwaffe.

I have three cities left in Norway to take but the distances are vast and I have to move fast.
here are three screen shots to attempt to show the distances involved.
Bergen is city #1

#2
The armored car unit at the bottom is the same one in the upper right of the above screen shot.

and #3
the highlighted hexes at the bottom are the ones just above the purple armored car in the above screen shot.

Turkish Front

The battle for Smyrna.

As you can see Smyrna is well defended and I have the 7th army across the river.
This is a good example of how difficult it is for me to advance now.
I sent 5 air strikes and 4 land attacks against the enemy my last attack all I had left was 1 armored car company and Smyrna had just a small element left of staff defending. I barely won. in the screen shot you can see he has reinforcements south of Smyrna that could have easily retaken the city but thankfully I had a couple Fallshirmjaeger regiments just close enough to land in the city to hold it.

This was a super close battle pitting the entire 7th against a few small units and I just barely won. I lost more than he did but I did have to cross a river to attack.

I still have several cities in turkey to conquer but I am not sure the effort is worth it. But I don't think I can afford to leave a land route open on my southern flank when I am attacking Russia. Especially when I don't have Italy available to keep Britain occupied in North Africa.
Also remember that like a dummy I didn't declare Vichy so I also have all the French colonies to deal with.

a look at whats left of Turkey

and the biggest city left is in central turkey Ankara is the name.

and in the southeast are several left and this is a natural choke point which could be easily defended if I could make it that far. Antioch would be the key here and is right on the Turkish border.