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And in the Baltic states the Russian offensive is rolling on with two attacks on the medium bomber unit. The Germans have very little counter attack capability and the Russians have started to build HQ and planes. Always a bad sign for the Germans. The allies, in fact, are at a substantial MMP advantage with America at 1,100 per turn.

But, things have slowed down in France. I should clear out the Brittany penninsual soon (famous last words) and I did kill a rocket unit, but more land troops are needed. Skynet has decided to thawrt my own air strategy by putting a massive number of fighters in France and the Low Countries. Given that Skynet almost always does more damage to me (even given the British level 4 fighters) I take more MMP losses than he does from the ariel battles. But, it does keep the squeeze on the Germans.

Not much new in the Pacific. I give up trying to take Kwajalein and I'll try Guam and Saipan instead. At least they will give me a chance to use the A-bomb in 1945.

It's now September 1944 and things are creaking for skynet. The Soviets have made dramatic gains in the Ukraine liberating Deneperpetrovsk (thus slightly reducing German morale each turn due to food shortages) and made it to the gates of Kiev. As you can see, Stalingrad continues to hold out as do other pockets that require efforts to dig them out.

The picture in the center is just as grim for skynet. There is a pocket northwest of Moscow with an HQ and two artillery units that I'll have to slowly reduce. But, in the center a large all infantry assault is sweeping forward. They will be held up by the German festungs, however.

Meanwhile, in the Baltic states, a soviet armored unit has penetrated into the Reich! It made it to the gates of Koingsburg (soon to be renamed Kaliningrad ) I probably should have gone to Kaunas with its supply source, but it does feel good to be inside of Germany at last! Again, there is a lot of clean up to do. But, Soviet production is moving into high gear as it is able to build new units each turn.

In France the Allies are just where they were historically. Skynet has 6 fighter squadrons there (which is giving Russian ground support planes time to stretch their wings on the eastern front) but not a lot of ground forces. Paris and Metz each fell this turn. The question I have now is whether or not France comes back into the war.

I finally am making progress in the island hopping campaingn. Saipan and Guam are mine and I'm about to take Tinian. There are a couple of IJN units floating around, but they will be hard pressed against this massive fleet. The Brits there are at zero supply. I hope they can use US ports to resupply themselves.

And China, dear china. The Reds surrendered. But, two good things. First, the USSR is sending emergency aid of 100 mpp per turn (political event). Second, I took off my historical blinders and realized I could send allied planes into China. So, at least Skynets devastating ground support is being challenged a little bit and some Indian ground support is able to ding a couple of Japanese units.

Well I played through to the spring of 1945 and Skynet clearly decided to stand and fight. It took forever to reduce the pocketed Germans in Russia but things finally turned around and Russian armor is at the gates of Warsaw and has cleared out the Ukraine. I'm leaving the crimea alone as it's too much of a diversion.

Here is the Ukraine! I'm sure that Finland is glad it did not press the issue and the Rumanians are glad they did not fight.

In the west Skynet was having a field day shooting down British jets (level 5 fighters) and my ground support with little loss to itself. My ground support is still not as effective but I've managed to push into Holland and liberate part of the Ruhr. Again, it appears as if Germany is running out of troops.

Now Italy has had a good war. It has lost none of its colonies and besides its navy it has taken few losses. So, what would you do if you were the Duce? Why, you would declare war on Vichy France. This was an insane move on Skynet's part but kind of fits with the Duce's way he ran the war. Vichy promptly invaded and took Turin and Milan and now the gateway is open for the allies to go around and into Italy. France is reunited with Vichy but the Vichy forces are still on the map.

Meanwhile the Soviet Union has invaded Manchuria and taken Harbin. More conquests will hopefully follow but it does not seem to have taken the pressure off of the Chinese.

This is pretty much all that is left of China. Japanese air support has been deadly and there seems to be no stopping it, even with allied fighters. Meanwhile, allied air support takes losses and does not inflict any.

I also notice the the Japanese did an airstrike with their carriers and and caused losses and did that quite a bit in China. But, all of the airstrikes I have conducted with US carriers have missed. As in, every single airstrike and there have been a lot of them. Yes, I had it on naval/tactical mix and ever other setting as well and still nothing. And, shore bombardment does not work either so basically the huge American navy is now pointless while the Japanese still make hay with hit and run tactics.

I pushed on through and won a decisive victory over Skynet in April 1946. Germany actually surrendered in September 1945 but getting Japan to give up proved to be pretty hard! There were three atom bombs dropped on the Home Islands (the third was Osaka) but that was not enough. I invaded Kysuhu and took Nagasaki but Japan basically had an army or corp in every hex so it was impossible to get any further. What finally knocked Japan out was the Russian attack into Manchuria that pushed on through to take Peking and the allies invaded and took Shanghai.

I have some petty quibbles (see below). But the bottom line is that I really (and I do mean REALLY) like this game. If I want a game where the relative airspeed between the P-47 and the Frank matters then I'll play WiTPAE. This game is not a photograph of the war just like Picasso's Guernica is not an accurate representation of the air raid in question. But it sure captures the feeling of being there. You have to fight a global war and you have to make global choices. As the US, do I build another carrier, send money to China, or invest in strat bombing? As England what do I do with my fleet? Can Stalin prevent Japan from declaring war on him when Hitler invades. The island hopping gives you the flavor of invasions and the resources necessary to make it work even though the map can be a bit jarring to the eye at first. I had a lot of fun. I'll try my hand as the Axis next. Skynet is not brilliant, but still pretty challenging and I was very nervous in 1940-1943.

There seemed to be a couple of glitches. First, the allies invaded Italy through the north after Italy declared war on Vichy France. After the allies pushed down to Rome I had anti-fascist partisan attacks in Milan and elsewhere. It seems as if the routine was written to trigger those when the allies get into southern Italy without taking into account that they might be getting to southern Italy by way of the north. Also, on at least two occasions after Germany/Italy surrendered I got messages that Malta was interfering with N. Africa supply. That makes me wounder if either (a) that message is basically meaningless or (b) if the effect was continuing even after it did not matter anymore.

Also, after Italy and Germany surrendered Finland and Bulgaria kept fighting. Obviously not a big deal, but annoying to have to deal with while trying to pound Japan into submission.

It seemed to be impossible to have any sort of offensive in Burma as British/Indian units were unable to cross the jungle terrain.

I realize that Skynet gives itself advantages but sometimes it was frustrating to lose 5-6 air steps to one German air step when I had better technology. Also, North Africa became a stalemate at the Sinai that lasted several years. I've only played this once, but it seemed too easy for the Germans to push on through once the Africa Corps showed up.

The diplomacy game seemed to not really make much difference. I forgot about it after 1940 as there were no significant movements. The main surprise was that Romania did not enter the war and that hurt the Germans (which from my point of view was a good thing).

I also did not like the Indian army having to do research. It seems a bit too cute and, since India does not have a lot of money it wound up in 1946 with 1940 fighter and bomber technology.

I was also surprised to win a Decisive victory even though it took almost a year longer than the historical finish.

I think it would help in the solitaire mode to have a button where you can have the other side surrender. It basically became a grind in 1946 pounding on Japan so that the war would end when it was pretty obvious that it was all over. Three a bombs and the loss of Kysuhu would probably mean the end but I had to slog through turns until Japan finally threw in the towel.

All in all I had a lot of fun!