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May/Jun 1943

2nd Axis Impulse:

Land Combat (continued):
In France, a huge air combat happens as 8 Axis bombers and 10 Allied bombers converge to provide ground support to Eisenhower. Axis has the fighter advantage slightly but overall a 0/0 odds.

1st round, Allies roll a 15, and choose to abort the lead Axis fighter. Axis rolls a 11, and Allies clear their best bomber. Odds now at +2/-2 in favor of the ALLIES.

2nd round, Allies roll another 15, Axis has to kill their lead bomber. Axis rolls a 17, and chooses to abort the lead Allied fighter. The odds now swing way over to Axis favor +4/-4

3rd round, Allies roll a 7, no effect. Axis rolls a 7 as well, and aborts the last Allied fighter. All Axis bombers cleared. Odds go to +3/-3.

4th round, Allies get lucky and roll a 6, aborting the last Axis fighter. Axis rolls a 20, killing the lead bomber. Air combat is over, almost all bombers cleared.

May/Jun 1943

2nd Axis Impulse:

Land Combat (continued):
Now lets get to the results of these combats..

1st combat is in Russia, but the Japanese are attacking the city of Chita. They throw in HQ support to get a +6.429 modifier.

Soviets pick the Assault table. Japanese don't get the fractional and roll a 12, all units are disorganized, and Russia loses 1 unit, they pick a Militia.

May/Jun 1943

2nd Axis Impulse:

Land Combat (continued):
Soviet ground support helps out the defense of Kuybyshev where the Koniev HQ is defending. The ratio sits at +6.560. Russia chooses the Blitz table.

Germany gets the fractional, and rolls a 10 for 17 overall. Half the Axis forces are disorganized, while the Soviets are forced to retreat.

May/Jun 1943

2nd Axis Impulse:

Land Combat (continued):
The last attack in Russia is on a 5-1 GARR guarding a gap between two lakes. Germany breaching this gap can unravel the defensive line. The modifier sits at +8.8 on the Blitz table, which is what Germany chooses.

The Axis rolls a 12 and gets the fractional, for 21 overall. The defending GARR is shattered as Germany takes advantage of a breakthrough.

May/Jun 1943

2nd Axis Impulse:

Land Combat (continued):
In Portugal, the Axis is trying to catch the Allies asleep, where they left a South African TERR all alone in a hex. With doubled defense because of ground support, the modifier sits at +9 on the blitz table, which the Axis chooses.

Axis rolls a 13 for 22 overall, killing the TERR, and allowing for a breakthrough which allows an Italian MECH to overrun one Allied bomber.

May/Jun 1943

2nd Axis Impulse:

Land Combat (continued):
The last attack is in France, where the Axis are trying to kill the Eisenhower HQ stuck on the beach. The modifier is +6.8 on the Assault table which the US picks.

Germany gets the fractional (+7) and rolls a 19, killing the two US units + 2 other aircraft on the ground

I'm considering putting this AAR on hold for a couple of reasons..

1st, the Allies have been pretty much screwed through this whole thing through bad play from me and from favoritism to the Axis side from the beginning. That favoritism was out of a underlying thought that the Axis needed a perfect set of milestones to survive and it made me play the Allies too conservatively and not smartly.

2nd, I really want to try out my alternative reality scenario that I started coming up with last month, where I start the war with the whole world belligerent. I'm really interested in seeing if that is doable. If its not working I'll see it pretty quickly, and will probably come back to this one.

Apologize to those following this one, but as I see it, the US is going to really mess up Japan eventually, but the Soviets were not played well and the Germans seem to be able to hold their own in Europe.

Coming in after reading through the whole thing, I don't really know what to suggest that might have made the Allied situation better in Europe (despite Japanese success in China, India, and the USSR, the US is obviously large and in charge in the Pacific).

But I think the USSR should have thrown down its o-chit early on in the 1942 conflict in southern Ukraine when German air support was minimal. At that point the USSR had cheap units to take losses (units which ended up dying during the retreat) and could have put a dent in German plans in the south. The Red Army would have had to run, eventually, but with some dead Germans to their credit.

In addition, the US/CW did not IMO build enough FTR early on. And the CW built, again IMO, too much navy - the builds spent on carriers & CVP could have gone to FTR and NAV.

All that being said, it seems that Allied bombing results were atrocious, and Axis land attacks sailed through time and time and time again. Not much the Allies can do about that.