Courtenay's solitaire AAR

[Courtenay]

The Japanese fail to find the Americans in Clarion, and just plain forget to initiate combat in the Bay of Bengal.

In the Western Med, the Germans finally get lucky. They find the Allies on four successive search rolls. The first combat they include only the zero box, shoot down the RSA Hurricane IIA and its pilot, sink a CW and a Portuguese CP, and sending a Spanish cruiser home. The second round, the both sides found each other. In the air to air combat, the Germans aborted an Allied CVP that was acting as a bomber, whose purpose was to absorb DA and DX results. The Allies shot down an Italian Float plane and its pilot, while letting a Condor and an Italian NAV through. These planes damaged the Victorious, and sent an Allied battleship home. The next round the Germans had a surprise advantage, and aborted all the Allied FTRs. Allied AA rolled a 5, aborting the Condor. The Italian NAV finished off the Victorious. The fourth round, despite the FW 190 being used as a bomber, the Axis only managed to abort more Allied ships. Finally, after all that, the Germans rolled a four, and with no CPs in the Sea area, failed to find the Allies. This could have been much worse for the Allies; as it was, it was not good.

[Courtenay]

The Germans ground strike Tangier and Gibraltar, each with two Stukas. The Italian ART also bombards Gibraltar. This time, the US puts up a plane over Tangier, to make the Germans use their FTRs. The one Allied FTR causes three German FTRs to respond. In air-to-air combat, the US FTR actually aborts one of the German FTRs, but does nothing else. The new AA unit at Tangiers puts 15 AA pts against Tangier and 5 against Gibraltar. On lowest 1 of 3 at Tangiers, it rolls a 9, a 9, and a 10! The Germans aborted a 5 pt Stuka and put the four points on a six pt Stuka, which proceeded to roll a three against McArthur, just missing. In Gibraltar, both Allied corps were flipped, but the AT gun remains organized.

[Courtenay]

The Germans rail a 7 pt FTR down to Cadiz.

The Germans fly another 7 pt FTR down to La Spezia, and fly a Condor from the Atlantic coast to the Med Coast, to replace the one that was aborted. The Japanese move a FTR back from Malaya to China, and also send their long range NAV back to China.

The Germans use three HQs (Guderian, von Bock, and Rommel) to reorganize all the aircraft they used this phase. That gurgling noise you hear is German oil going down the drain.

[Courtenay]

J/A Allied #3. Weather 10, F, F, F, St, F, F, modifier +1, imp. advance 1
US, SU, Ch land, CW combined, Fr naval

The CW puts a Wildebeast into the three box of the western Med, and the US puts a 7 pt Hellcat into the three box and two 5 point planes (a P38 and a P40L) into the zero box.

The CW puts 2 CPs, 2BBs and a CA into zero box of the Western Med, and two more BBs and a CA into the three box.

The Axis searches for the Allies in the Western Med. The Germans add a Condor to the two box.

The Axis rolls a 4, the Allies a 5. The Germans include only the zero box in the combat. They have four surprise points, which they use to lower the Allies combat and to raise there own. The first round of air combat the Axis clears the Wildebeast through, and the US misses. The second round of air combat clears the Condor through, and the front American fighter is aborted. As the air combat has now gone to plus and minus three, the remaining American plane aborts the air combat, but stays in the sea area. AA fire reduces the Axis bombing strength by 2. The Germans get two Ds and an A. The first D sinks a convoy point; the second aborts the Hawkins. The A aborts the last CP. The next round, the Axis and the Allies both roll fives. Combat ends. To my great glee, the no bomber target aborting naval combat bug has been fixed.

The Axis has successfully knocked out supply in the Western Med. Among other things, this shuts down the strategic bombing campaign for this impulse, as most of the bombers are based in Corsica and Sardinia.

[Courtenay]

The British rail a MIL from the interior of England to Aberdeen. Might as well get the unit into a port. The British move Wavell three hexes towards Gabes; his speed is limited by the supply unit he is bringing with him. Mountbatten moves one hex to northwest, towards Burma, as that is the only place he can move without flipping. The Allies expect him to flip at some point during the turn. The Russians shuffle units around, as do the Allies in England. The new 6-3 Chinese unit finally makes it into the line, adjacent to Kweiyang, where it is joined by the Chinese ART, which has finally made it that far south. A Communist partisan moves around Fukuoka, threatening the rail line to Hanoi. The Japanese can block this, but only at the cost of putting another unit out of supply, at least until the weather changes. MacArthur moves back into Tangier.

Moving Wavell to east means that if the Allies are put out of supply, the Allies can use a supply unit to get Gibraltar back in supply.

In air rebase, the Gibraltar magnet continues to operate at full effectiveness, as a large number of CW planes fly towards Gibraltar. The CW flies a Halifax off of Sardinia, where it was in a hex with a zero defense against invasion.

MacArthur reorganizes the 8-5 MOT in Gibraltar, the 5-3 AA in Tangier, and a 6 pt FTR that flew a mission over Tangier.

[Courtenay]

J/A 42 Axis #4:
Ge, Ja combined; It naval

The Germans wanted to do a land, so that they could reorganize after the attack on Gibraltar, but realized that they needed more than four air actions if they wanted to have a good chance of having an attack on Gibraltar this impulse.

In naval air, the Germans fly three FTRs to the two box of Cape St. Vincent,

In naval movement, the Japanese moved a TRS to the Marianas, to reorganize the CP accidentally moved to Kwajalien. This supplements the AMPH which was unable to do the job because of a bug. The Allies will not attack either of those two units this turn, because neither of them should really be there. The Italians move their whole remaining fleet to the Eastern Med, in the hopes that they can cut the supply line to Gibraltar. The Germans and Italians both move all the subs that can reach (three and one, respectively) to two box of the Caribbean. The Japanese move a TRS with a corps into the South China Sea, daring the two remaining Allied subs to do anything about it.

[Courtenay]

The Axis does the submarine combat in the Caribbean first. Glory days: Axis 1, Allies 10. The Axis moves the Allies result down two 2A, and moves its results up to 2X, D, and an A. Five more Allied CPs sink, and another is aborted. However, the Italian and the worst German submarine are both forced to abort. The Axis, with only half their force remaining, are ambivalent about continuing; however, one more pair of rolls like the last one, and the Caribbean will be cleared. So the Axis decides to go for it. And indeed, the Caribbean is cleared -- of Axis submarines. The Axis rolled a four, the Allies a two. Four cruisers, mostly French, found the German, with four surprise points. The French shrug their shoulders at the prospect of damage, saying "The Americans will pay for it," and increase the amount of damage they do, two 2Ds and 3A. Both German submarines are damaged and sent home. The French take a D on the Foch, as having the best damage rating of the available ships (they aren't very good ships), but the Foch is damaged. The next A goes on it, and it saves. The final A of course also goes on it. Another successful submarine sortie.

[Courtenay]

In Cape St. Vincent, the Axis flies all remaining long range bombers to the two box (one Condor and three Italians.) The Allies respond by sending four planes to the zero box, and a Sunderland to the three box. The Axis rolls an 8, the Allies a 5. No one finds anyone.

The Italians try their luck in the Eastern Med. The US proudly flies its Catalina to the four box. The CW looks around for what is available to fly, and all that they can come up with a a Harrow, which flies to the zero box. The Italians roll an 8, the Allies a 6, for no result.

In Clarion, the Japanese submarines roll a 1, while the Allies roll an 8. With only one CP in the sea area, the Japanese shift the Allied combat result down to 1 A; one Japanese submarine goes home, while yet another Allied CP is sunk. The Japanese stick around, but do not commit their SUBs the second round, ending the combat.

The Germans don't quite see the point in flying in the Western Med; they want their 7 point FTR in the mix, first. The Allies don't have the option of combat in this sea area, as no Axis planes or ships moved into or through the area this turn.

[Courtenay]

The US takes a look at the situation in the South China sea, looks at the battleships in the area, and decides that the battleships only have a twenty percent chance of finding the Allies, while the Allies have a 30% chance of finding the Japanese. The US decides to go for it. This decision works well, as the Allies roll a 1, while the Axis rolls an 8. The US looks at the combat charts, and decides that would have a 50-50 chance of sinking the TRS (and could certainly damage it); however, given the current state of the Japanese merchant marine, getting rid of the Japanese CPs is the better move. The Allies have more surprise points than they know what to do with; they reduce the Japanese result to "No effect", and sink four of the three Japanese CPs in the sea area. The Japanese have only three CPs on land at the moment; they can replace what was just sunk, but do not have enough CPs to ship all the resources that touch the South China Sea back to Japan. However, the Allied submarine effort is done for turn: both remaining submarines their are flipped, so unless the Allies want to suicide some surface naval units their, they are done.

[Courtenay]

The Germans launch two Stukas against Tangiers, and a Stuka and a four point ART against Gibraltar. This is all of their air actions. The Allies decide there is too much air cover over Gibraltar, but send a 6 pt Canadian FTR (flown in from the Azores during air rebase) to intercept. The Germans respond with a six point FTR and a 5 pt FTR. The first round, the Canadians roll a 16, for an AA. They don't think they are going to win the air battle, and send the front 5 pt Stuka home. The Germans respond with an 11. The Allies really, really wish that the Bounce Combat rule was implemented. If it were, there would be a dead Stuka. However, it isn't. The next round of combat, the Allies roll a 7, DA, and the Germans abort their front FTR, and start to worry. However, they roll a 14, aborting the Canadian FTR. The Allies made the right decision, given the die rolls; if they had not aborted the front Stuka, both would have gotten through.

[Courtenay]

A single Stuka is bombing both Gibraltar and Tangeier; the Allies throw in two AA shots against each, getting lowest 1 of 5. Against Gibraltar, the first roll is a 1, for a 1 point reduction. Against Tangiers, the rolls were 10, 8, 9, 6, and 8. The Stuka was aborted and sent home. MacArthur is safe for this impulse. This will stop the attack on Gibraltar for this turn. Against Gibraltar, the ART rolled a 4 and 5, disorganize the MOT but not the AT gun. The Stuka rolled a 3, disorganizing the AT gun.

However, with MacAthur still organized across the strait, the Germans see little point in making an attack this impulse; it would be at about +3 plus HQ support, and the Germans were not planning to use HQ support, so the attack would be a +2. Plus two attacks are not worth it. Try again next impulse.

The Germans are frustrated: they had intended to make two attacks on Gibraltar this turn, but having to spend three impulses on ground strikes is eating up time, and more importantly, German air power; they don't really have enough planes left to make two fully supported strikes on Gibraltar.

The Germans use Rundstedt to reorganize two 6 point Stukas. They only have Manstein and von Bock left unflipped, and von Bock is scheduled to make the last German attack of the turn. The Germans are beginning to fear that the last attack might be the first one, though.

The Japanese reorganize the misplaced convoy point.

[Courtenay]

J/A 42 Allied #5: Weather roll 2+1; F, F, F, R, F, F, Imp advance 1, modifier 1.

No, we did not get rain in J/A in the northern temperate for the second time this game.

US, CW, Fr naval, SU, Chi land

The British fly a 5 pt FTR out to the three box of the Western Med, and a 5 pt Indian Spitfire to the two box of the Bay of Bengal.

[Courtenay]

A US TRS takes the new Hurricane IID to the North Atlantic. It is not a good plane, but it has wings and machine guns, so it is going to be thrown into combat. Two US TRS move from Spanish Morocco to off the East Coast, where they pick up an INF and MOT corps; at the end of the turn, they will return to base, probably in England. The Queens put to sea in the Western Med. The Axis looks at the limited number of units they have to flip in the Western Med, the 7 pt FTR they are about to add to the sea zone, and their belief that the Queens would simply stop on a successful naval interception, and decline to intercept. The Queens continue on into the Eastern Med, as it would be much harder for the Axis to destroy them there. The Queens job is to reorganize a CP. The US puts two empty TRS into the zero box of the Cape Verde Basin. Their job is to reorganize planes aborted from Cape St. Vincent. The Houston picks up the division that had been reconquering French Polynesia and moves to the zero box of the Austral. The US is not sure where this is unit is going, but it will rebase somewhere useful.

The US puts out ASW patrols in the Pacific. The Independence, without planes, sails from Honolulu to San Diego. The Cowpens and the Alabama put out for naval maneuvers in the zero box of the West Coast.

The US swings two CPs from San Diego over to the Caribbean. They also add a CW convoy point and the Brazilian one. The French put three CPs into the Cape Verde Basin, the CW one. The US moves two CPs into the Western Med. Two US convoy points in the Faroes Gap and one from the North Atlantic are returned to base at Norfolk, where they join the convoy point aborted from the Carribean. Two TRS are pulled out of San Diego and sent to the Caribbean, where they plan to reorganize the four CPs. The French move three CPs into the Cape Verde Basin, and the CW one. The French have 1 CP left, the CW one in Cape Town, plus one in Malta. The US the four in Norfolk, one in Oran, Algeria, and several in the Pacific. The Allies have put one fewer CP in the Carribean, but do not need it so long as the Port of Spain oil is saved in place. The Allies are short two CPs in the Cape Verde Basin. The De Tromp sails into a random Indian port,

The US decides not to replace the CP in Clarion. At some point, they should, but they don't want to give the Japanese another shot at a CP.

Two turns ago, the Allies were happy with their CP situation. Two turns of successful submarine action, plus air strikes in the Mediterranean have led to the elimination of almost all the Allied reserve. Next turn lend-lease to the CW, already cut back this turn, will go to zero. The Japanese are even worse off. They won't have a reserve. Next turn, the Japanese build a CP. The turn thereafter, the Japanese and the US will both build two. The turn after that, the US eight, the CW four, and the Japanese six. These numbers might best be described as "utterly inadequate".

[Courtenay]

The Allies try for a naval action in the Bay of Bengal. They roll a 5, the Axis a 10. Nobody finds anybody. The Allies really wish they had these rolls in the Eastern Med.

In the Eastern Med, the Allies roll a 3, the Italians a 7. The Allies decide to include all the Italian ships, which was a mistake, caused by my thinking the Italians had rolled a 6.The Italian AA, lowest 1 of three, rolls a 4, a 6, and a 1. Oops. The Allies get 2X, 1D, and an A. They Allies put the X on the best remaning Italian battleship, the Andrea Dorea. It rolls a three and sinks. The Italians put an X on their worst cruiser, the Attendolo. It rolls an 8, and saves, but might as well be sunk. The Allies put a D on the Compte de Cavour, which is damaged. The Italian fleet is basically no more. The final A goes on the Compte de Cavour, and then the Italian fleet leaves, thank you very much.

The Allies look at that 7 pt FTR ready to pounce in the Western Med, and decide to initiate air combat while they might have air superiority. They fly a 6 pt Pr7-B into the zero box. They regret this choice when the Axis rolls a two and the Allies a seven. The Axis picks only the zero box, and moves the Allied Air-to-air combat column down 2 and their own up two. The first round of combat, the Axis rolls a nine, missing, while the Allies roll an 18, DX PX. The Axis has to shoot down the front Italian NAV. The Allies decide to push their luck and stay. This time, the Axis rolls a 14, aborting the P-47. The Allies roll a 16, AA, and abort the Axis Condor, the last Axis NAV in the sea area. The next round, the lone remaining Allied FTR aborts the combat, but stays in the sea box. The commander of the air group is decorated. The commander of the search operation is fired. The Axis is asked if they want to stay for another round of combat. With no NAVs available, the Axis sees no reason to stick around, and abandons the sea area.

The Allies politely decline action in Cape St. Vincent and Clarion.

[Courtenay]

The Russians take a look at the Manchurian situation. I am playing as if the Japanese and the USSR had signed a neutrality pact in 1940. The Japanese garrison value is 4 (off. and def.), while the USSR's is 7. One more unit, and the USSR could declare war on Japan. Stalin looks at those figures, and says "That's interesting." Last impulse, the Russians moved two units out of Vladivostok. This impulse, the Russians rail two units from Blagovyeshchensk and Khabarovsk down to Vladivostok. This actually lowers the Russian garrison value for this turn, but puts two units much nearer to where the Russians will want them in the event of war.

The CW offloads the Hurricane in the North Atlantic onto the Azores.

The US spends some time figure if the MacArthur should reorganize some units, or if he should make the Germans come and bomb him. He decides that there are too many German fighters intercept range for an air battle over Gibraltar, but that there is some hope of making a fight of it over Tangier, so he decides to not reorganize. Gort, however, reorganizes a Beaufighter. Not the best plane, but the best unit that will be in Gort's reorganization range this turn.

The two US TRS off Norfolk reorganize 4 CPs, and the Queens reorganize one in Malta.

[Courtenay]

J/A 42 Axis #6:
Ge land, It combined, Ja naval.

Initially, I chose land for the Italian impulse. Then when I got to naval combat, Cape St. Vincent didn't appear, and I went "What? Oh.", and redid the turn to that point.

There was not much of a turn to redo: The Japanese moved three CPs from three different ports to the South China Sea; pulled back two CPs from the China Sea to Truk, and moved the AMPH that couldn't reorganize units back to Truk. They also moved an empty TRS from Singapore back to Japan and added a cruiser to the Marshalls. Aside from defending the area against naval raiders, the cruiser helps defend Kwajalein and Eniwotok from amphibious assault.

[Courtenay]

The Germans try a combat in Cape St. Vincent. The Allies fly the newly arrived Hurricane in the Azores into the zero box. The results of the search are not what the Axis was hoping for. The Axis rolled a 10, the Allies a 1. This air-to-air combat is so lopsided, the Allies decide to fight the battle. The Allies shift the air-to-air column so far to the right as to guarantee a +8 attack, and shift the Axis column down one. The Axis decides that if one plane is going to be killed, they will want it to be a bad one, and lead off with a Bf-110. Sure enough, the Allies roll a 6, getting an AX, while the Axis rolls a 7, clearing a bomber through. I am not sure I have ever had a roll of 7 clear a bomber through before. After some thought between killing a NAV and the FTR, the Allies kill the German FTR. The pilot survived. The second round, both sides rolled a eight, ending the combat. Note that the Allied roll of a 1 meant the units in that box found the Germans, as there is a carrier in the hex. That is why the air-to-air combat was so horrendous.

Annoyed by this, the Japanese decide to try and get some revenge in the Bay of Bengal. The Japanese roll a 1, the Allies a 2. The Japanese are outnumbered in the air, but have two surprise points, which they use to lower the Allies air-to-air value. The Allies roll a 10, which does nothing. The Japanese roll a 16, aborting the Indian Hurricane. Only the Buffalo is left for the Allies, who abort the combat. The second round, the Japanese roll a 10, the Allies a 6 for no effect.

[Courtenay]

Now comes the German ground strike against the Gibraltar. The Allies find out that they have made a mistake: They thought they had an organized air unit in range of Tangier. They were wrong. The German strike on MacArthur is unopposed. The Germans send two 6 pt Stukas to bomb MacArthur. They roll a 9 and a 7, missing. The Germans are getting very frustrated at their luck; this impulse was about as bad as it could possibly have been. The last glimmer of hope the Germans had of making two attacks on Gibraltar this turn just went away. Now they are down to only one attack, and there is a small chance the turn will end before that happens.

If the Germans had known that the dice had a 9 and a 7 waiting, they would have skipped the ground strike and gone straight to combat. Somehow I never figure things like that out ahead of time. [:)]

[Courtenay]

The Germans rail a GAR into La Rochelle.

The Germans shuffle some land units around. The Italians move a unit into Toulon.

The Germans fly the 7 pt FTR in La Spezia to Toulon, where it is in rebase range of the Spanish Atlantic coast. They fly a Bf-109 in Konigsburg, which I had managed to forget existed, to Slovakia. The Japanese are embarassed to discover that they had put their long range ATR in a hex where it was out of supply; they rebase it one hex west, where it is supplied by Terauchi, in the flooded area of the Yellow River. They also realize that they were using their carrier deck space very inefficiently; by moving carrier planes around, they manage to get the five CVPs in Truk to fit in three carriers rather than four, leaving Akagi empty. Now it just has to figure out how to get new planes -- either go back to Japan itself, or have a transport bring out a CVP from Japan next turn. There are several very nice ones in the reserve pool, and the pilots will be available.

The Germans attempt to reorganize a Stuka with their ATR, and run into a bug. The Germans use Manstein to reorganize a Stuka and the Condor. If the ATR had worked, both Stukas would be reorganized. I duplicate this effect by going back to the ground strike phase and don't fly one of the Stukas. (Bug fixed in 1.2.2.8.)

Yamashita reorganizes two convoy points and the AMPH in Truk.

[Courtenay]

J/A 42 Allied #7: Weather: 9, F, F, F, St, F, F. Imp advance 1, no modifier
CW, SU, Ch land, US air, Fr Naval

The Fr could have passed, as they don't actually move anything. The Russians move a CP out to the Faroes Gap. There it can be a little bit useful.

The CW rails a supply unit from Sousse to on top of Alexander. It won't be useful this turn, but could be very useful later

The Russians shuffle some units around Vladivostock, and move the Communist CAV and ART into Kwielin, while the 2-2 partisan moves from southwest of Kweilan to the mountains due west. This flips both the ART and the PART. The Partisan was looking at a more or less automatic attack when the weather cleared; in the mountians, it still probably dies, but might take the some Japanese with it. And it will probably unflip before the weather clears.

The British advance three units, including Mountbatten, one hex east into the Chin Hills and Arakan Range in India and Burma. In good weather, the CW can now supply an attack on Mandalay. They reorganize units in Africa; in particular, their best non-HQ land unit, an 8-6 white print ARM, is no longer stuck inland south of Tobruk, but has moved to Bengazi. The MAR XX moves to Manchester, where there is sea lift for it. A MOT div east of Tripoli moves to Gabes.

The CW division in the Red Sea debarks into Aden.

The CW rebases the reorganized Beaufighter to within intercept range of Gibraltar and Tangier, and the Wellington to Corsica. This uses up all of the CW air missions in a land. Nobody else rebases anything.

Why did the US call an air?

Alexander reorganizes a 6 pt Canadian Hurricane XII and a US P-47B. That's why. Wavell could reorganize a US P39 in Tripoli; the Allies don't think its worth the 1/2 oil point (.6-.1).

End of turn roll: 2.

If the Allies had gone for a pass, they would have prevented an attack on Gibraltar. They did not pass. They went for fighter cover instead. Oh well.