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The Japanese elect to attrition the US with the first ground attack against the states themselves. Unfortunately, it does not go as well as expected. The couple damaged units will arrive in Japan to be rebuilt - but we have significantly more destroyed units than I anticipated.

On to spring! The Soviets are expelled from Austria, Czechoslovakia is attritioned, Germany reconnects to Italy, and evacuates all troops to defend the Reich in its last days. The attack on Austria (with some troops ready to go into Czechoslvakia) -

Czechoslovakia.

Unfortunately, the Germans do not survive another season. Jan reported this attack had an 80something% chance of success. Perhaps I should have put a little more in East Germany and less in West. But the advantage of my deployment was that if Jan had bad luck here - Germany would have held one more season.

Japan finds itself alone. Jan has also moved against Ceylon - giving him a base against India and the co-prosperity sphere. Yamamoto orders attacks by naval and airforces against the intruder!

Banzai!

The Japanese high command is withdrawing troops from North America. Additionally, a militia unit cuts the trans-siberian railway to slow the new threat of Soviet Russia. The world situation for Japan. But Jan has many units in Vladivostok, ready to strike.

The Russians conquer Manchuria during their turn. The Japanese seize the opportunity to retake Irkutsk in an amphibious invasion. My thought was that the Russians would not be able to reinforce and would lack the supply to move much deeper into China. A Russian fighter is eliminated and artillery is heavily suppressed. The landing succeeds!

In the South, Jan has moved a large force to Ceylon. But a lone Allied heavy fleet ventures too far into Japanese territory and is hit.

Winter of '45. Jan has seized the victory points in Chunking and also landed in South India and Burma. In retrospect, I wonder if it would not have been better to ignore Russia to keep the strat points in Chunking. But by my calculation, I have one more turn before the a-bomb as Jan got level 8 bombers in Summer. I elect to withdraw from Russia, reinforcing China and the South.

South Asia in detail - note the Japanese link a transport chain to the Southern resources area. But the chain is weak - particularly considering Jan's ultra-long range airforces in and around Burma. Carrier air are range 4 and heavy bombers are range 5!

End of Game: During Jan's turn, he wins the a-bomb victory - meaning an Allied Marginal Victory considering the time (winter of '46) and the fact that I acheived only the lower watermark of victory points needed to ensure normal victory conditions. During the Allied turn, Jan disbanded 4 of the 5 Allied heavy bombers - reducing the research cost of improving their land attack (and developing the A-bomb). So it takes him 2 turns to go from 8 to 9 instead of 3! [&o]

A few closing thoughts (may post more later): It was a great and interesting game with a few twists and turns. When I failed to capture Britain, I realized it would be difficult to pull out a win. Germany was not in a terrible position - but I did not have as much time or opportunity to hit Russia hard. The Allied economy was much weaker than normal - but still formidable. In the long-run, Germany could fight one opponent (the Soviets or the West) - but not both. Jan focused heavily on Germany - which I think was exactly the right thing to do. But it did allow me the opportunity to better my position with Japan. In retrospect, I might have done one of two things differently to try to beat the clock. One would have been to recognize the good position Japan was in sooner, and race the US for the bomb. I actually started to invest in the bomb - but I realized I was a little too far behind. Alternatively, I might have invaded Australia to gain those strategic victory points and help prevent an A-bomb win. But hindsight is 20-20. Going into North America was rather fun and did tie down some Allied troops, helping Germany a bit. And if I had just seized East Africa a turn earlier - I might have been able to last a bit longer. So - as in all fairly close games - I did some things right and some things wrong and learned from the experience. [:)]

Congrats on what seemed to be a very interesting game (and was a great AAR). [:)]

The person of the winner is almost a minor point in these cases - well, maybe not! [:'(]

An excellent AAR and I must say, Forwarn did extremely well against one of the toughest AWD opponents possible.