Early results from WiF Down Under
Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2010 7:50 am
November/December 1939
Pierre deBauch poured out the dregs of the bottle into his friends glass.
“I cannot believe how, even after crushing Poland by the end of October for the loss of only two divisions, the Bosch have not yet attacked Holland”
“Oui,” replied Paul LaGrosse suppressing a belch. “But remember the British had their fleet with loaded transports sitting in the North Sea all of last month. That scared all of the little Adolfs away and they didn't even invade Denmark until last Monday.”
“October was very wet,” recalled Pierre. “But the British were busy in India and you would think...”
“Non! Non!” interrupted Paul. “The Japanese didn't invade India until November. Remember the look on Winston's face yesterday when he received the Japanese declaration of war and heard that the Imperial Guard had landed in Coconda. You would think that seeing the Japanese fleet sailing in the Indian Ocean for two turns in a row would have warned those rosbifs that something was happening.”
“Maybe,” temporised Pierre. “I know the British examined that enemy fleet carefully in September but not in November...”
“... and so they didn't notice the transports loaded with Imperial Marines ...”
“... which walked into the east Indian port and declared the liberation of India,” concluded Pierre.
“Who can understand the British?” asked Paul.
********************************************
January/February 1940
URGENT...URGENT...URGENT... IJN COMMUNICATION... TO ALL UNITS
CHINESE 13TH RESERVE ARMY APPROACHING RAPIDLY AND ALL IMPERIAL ARMY TROOPS ARE CURRENTLY DEPLOYED IN OTHER LOCATIONS. FALL OF CANTON IMMINENT. ALL IJN UNITS BASED IN CANTON TO IMMEDIATELY REBASE IN TOKYO. CARRIERS KAGA, AKAGI,SORYU ETC ETC...OMG THE WHOLE FLIPPING IMPERIAL FLEET HAS BEEN REBASED AND FLIPPED AND IS USELESS FOR THE REST OF THE TURN AND THIS IS ONLY THE FIRST IMPULSE OF THE TURN!
IJNHQ
URGENT...URGENT...URGENT... IJN COMMUNICATION... TO IJNHQ
BRITISH CARRIER FLEET OBSERVED APPROACHING COCONDA. INCOMING CARRIER PLANES ATTACKING IJN TRANSPORTS IN PORT. ONE SUNK AND ONE ABORTED. OUR OFFENSIVE WITH THREE CORPS AGAINST WAVELLS FOUR MILITIA/GARRISON IN CENTRAL INDIA IS STALLED. EXPLAIN SOONEST DIVERSION OF MY THREE CORPS OF REINFORCEMENTS TO TSING-TAO. BRITISH REINFORCEMENTS ARRIVING IN INDIA EVERY TURN. ADDITIONAL TROOPS NEEDED HERE SOONEST.
ADM YAMAMATO
URGENT...URGENT...URGENT... IJN COMMUNICATION ...TO ADM YAMAMATO
BRITISH SUBMARINES OPERATING IN SEA OF JAPAN SINK TWO IMPERIAL CONVOYS. SIAMESE GOVT DEPLOYS ARMY TOO FAR NORTH AND IS UNABLE TO OCCUPY RANGOON. BRITISH MILITIA APPEAR IN RANGOON AND BURMA NOT YET PACIFIED. DETACH TROOPS SOONEST TO OCCUPY CALCUTTA AND RANGOON. SINGAPORE TAKEN BY IMPERIAL TROOPS. BRITISH SUBMARINES OPERATING OUT OF CALCUTTA AND BRITISH CARRIERS OPERATING OUT OF ADEN. TWO IJN SUBMARINES ASSIGNED TO PATROL ARABIAN SEA.
IJNHQ
********************************************
May/June 1940
“But Mein Fuhrer, whined Benito. “The allied Navy is so strong and we are so unready.”
“Dumkopf,” snarled Adolf. “Der British have sent most of their fleet to India to face the Japanese. This is our best chance to take the Suez Canal and link up with the Asiatics. You have most of your army at Bardia. Strike now!”
“But the French might...”
“Der Frogs are worse than dumkopfs! They sent all of their light ships to French Equatorial Africa, New Caledonia and other asian ports. They dare not face you.”
“They have seven battleships in Marseille.”
“And I have seven Panzer Corps in Holland with another seventy about to strike through Belgium.”
Benito didn't dare to correct der Fuhrer's obvious deficiency in mathematics.
“But the British... “ he whined.”
“Listen to me Benito,” hissed Adolf urgently. “The British have landed their army in western Holland and committed themselves too far to the north. Even as we speak our Panzers are slicing into Belgium. There is brilliant sunshine all through Europe and nothing can stop my Luftwaffe.”
“Well maybe I could...”
“Hit his convoys now!” urged Adolf. “Der Japanese have already sunk two of his transports and I have found that Winston has left Malta ungarissoned.”
“Malta is ungarissoned?” said Benito in a slightly braver voice.
“Ungarissoned!” repeated Adolf.
The two dictators looked at each other.
“Who can understand the British?” asked Benito.
********************************************
May/June 1940
The IJN Soryu rode easily over the swells as it bravely ran away. Meeting three Commonwealth carriers hadn't been part of Admiral Yakamaka's plan when he ordered his fleet into the Arabian sea. Now the IJN Hiryu was at the bottom of the sea and his plans for a port strike on Aden were permanently postponed.
“Perhaps the enemy carrier was also sunk?” ventured his Flag Captain. “Our pilots report two bomb hits on her flight deck.”
“They also positively identified her as the Ark Royal,” pointed out Yakamaka. If they had hit either of the other British carriers then I would agree, but I fear that after four months in drydock we will meet that ship again.... and we have lost a carrier permanently.”
“Our navy is still the strongest in the Pacific.”
“Perhaps,” said Yakamaka. “But we have no carriers under construction and the enemy port strike on Coconda sunk our transport fleet.”
Admiral Yakamaka was aware that as the Admiral commanding a failed attack he had a personal appointment with the short stabbing sword that was hanging in his cabin. After the fleet was safely returned to Bangkok he would keep that appointment and thereby permanently deprive the Empire of his own undoubted genius.
“Stupid British,” he thought to himself.
********************************************
May/June 1940
Merde!
Pierre leaned against the 47mm barrel of his anti-tank gun and stared around at the battered ruins of Brussels. The heaped carcasses of two five point French infantry units lay dead in the dust around him but his own anti-tank unit had lived to fight another day. Out in the suburbs of the Belgium capital the German attackers cleared away their casualties and reorganised their air force. Pierre doubted that the Boche could mount another attack on Brussels before July and, even if they did, the two French six point infantry units now moving into the Brussels defences would make it a tough fight. Pierre and his guns shouldn't have been there of course. The original agreement with Perfidious Albion had specified that the British would defend Brussels if the Germans invaded but in January the British had muttered something about 'Coconda' and removed half of their Expeditionary Force from the sacred soil of France. Now the French army needed to hold the line from Brussels to the Swiss border while the rosbifs clung to their two hex enclave straddling the Holland-Belgium border. If only the rosbifs would take over the defence of Brussels then Pierre knew his unit would be redeployed to Marseilles to lead the charge across the Alpes and into the Po valley. It wouldn't happen this year and unless a miracle happened it wouldn't even happen in 1941. The only interesting news was the announcement of France's declaration of war on Italy and the sailing of seven French battleships to meet the four battleships and five cruisers that the Italians had left in the western Mediterranean after they had sent seven cruisers into the eastern Mediterranean to support General Balbos attack on Egypt. The French and the Italian fleets had missed each other in the fog and Balbo had occupied Cairo and Alexandria. Things were looking bad for Egypt.
********************************************
July/August 1940
“A double victory my friend.”
Benito was in a good mood. His navy had sunk the French battleship 'Strasbourg' in the Eastern Mediterranean on the same impulse that the Germans had forced their way into the Maginot line and taken the French city of Strasbourg.
“Hmmmm.”
Adolf was certainly quiet today.
“We are only one hex from the Suez Canal.” continued Benito. “The Japanese are patrolling the Arabian sea and the Americans still say nothing.”
“Hmmmm.”
Benito set down his glass. Der Fuhrer was certainly in a bad mood.
“We need to talk about Gibraltar,” he said. “And maybe Greece.”
“Forget Gibraltar!” snarled Adolph. “I need to conquer France! September is coming and my Panzers are stopped on the border. Brussels still holds out and the French air force is growing every turn.”
********************************************
The serious stuff
A fairly standard set of German opening conquered Poland and Denmark then redeployed westward for a MA40 DOW on Holland and Belgium. The opportunistic Italians DOWd Britain in MA40, occupied an undefended Malta then pushed rapidly on Suez, fought their way into Cairo and sat facing the British rearguard one hex west of the Suez Canal. The French Army occupied and successfully defended Brussels, forcing the Panzers to slide south and attempt repeated assaults on the Maginot Line. Strasbourg fell in JA40 and Metz in SO40.
During the meanwhilst, the ND39 DOW by Japan on the Commonwealth certainly caught the allies by surprise but the invasion of India bogged down when Britain systematically stripped the Middle East to land forces to reinforce the Pacific. Japan was forced temporarily onto the defensive when the Chinese 13th Reserve Army marched into an ungarissoned Canton on the first impulse of JF40 and forced the entire Japanese fleet to flip, rebase and then sit out the rest of the turn in Tokyo. British subs based in Calcutta ravaged Japanese convoys and British carriers from Aden launched a Port strike on the Japanese bridgehead at Cocona sinking a much needed transport. German, Italian and Japanese subs returned the favour causing a tactical retreat of the British Merchant Marine from Asia. Germany claimed Lithuania in MJ40 and Latvia in JA40, prompting Russia to revoke the Pact, invade Persia then claim Bessabarabia in SO40.
After a year of war Japan had conquered NEI and Borneo but the front lines in China and India had stagnated and there was much speculation in the Allied camp about where Japan would find the troops to face the rapidly approaching American DOW. In Europe the Germans were grinding through the Maginot Line and it seemed doubtful that Paris would fall before the Americans (and the Russians) declared war on Germany. ND40 and JF41 passed with the Germans enlarging their Metz/Strasbourg bridgehead by only one hex per turn and the Japanese occupying an ungarrisoned Ceylon and edging around the southern end of the British line in India to occupy Calacut.
By MA41 the Japanese had exhausted the British fleet and were regularly patrolling the Arabian Sea which placed the British remnant in Egypt out of supply and allowed General Balbo's Italian legions to conquer Suez and look forward to linking up with the Japanese. At this point the Axis were on the cusp of victory – France's Army was still substantial but without the Maginot Line to anchor the defence the future held only a fighting retreat to Paris and inevitable Vichification. The British force in Brussels had German units on three hexsides and the future retreat of France meant that they needed to prepare escape routes via French ports. The Russians had redeployed the bulk of their army to face the Rumanians and the writing was on the wall for the Balkans.
MJ41 saws the destruction of the final British troops in Suez leaving a wing of Spitfire II's rebasing themselves into oblivion in the Syrian desert. Across the border in recently-conquered Iraq the Russians gazed impassively at the final destruction of the capitalists. Over in the Indian ocean the Japanese debarked in Italian Samaliland and began the long march south to Pretoria. No British troops stood in their way. Only Aden held out against the Axis pincers.
**************************************************************
At this point my three day leave pass expired and I packed up wife and kids and went home (naturally I played France). I'm betting on an Allied victory but we won't know for another week until the WiFCon finishes. Even if the Axis win the game there will be a nominal protest because EVERYONE forgot to ask Germany to take US Entry chits out for the Russo-German border during 1940, and therefore the additional entry chits picked by the US because of the early Japanese DOW on England were badly diluted (lots of 1939/40 zeros and ones which should have been picked from the pool before the 1941 chits were added). Too late to fix it up now but it certainly delayed the US Production Ramp up and set war entry back into a historic timetable.
It was great to get my hands dirty with the counters again and the event cleared out some of the ghosts of Wif 5 that had been confusing my playtesting.
Pierre deBauch poured out the dregs of the bottle into his friends glass.
“I cannot believe how, even after crushing Poland by the end of October for the loss of only two divisions, the Bosch have not yet attacked Holland”
“Oui,” replied Paul LaGrosse suppressing a belch. “But remember the British had their fleet with loaded transports sitting in the North Sea all of last month. That scared all of the little Adolfs away and they didn't even invade Denmark until last Monday.”
“October was very wet,” recalled Pierre. “But the British were busy in India and you would think...”
“Non! Non!” interrupted Paul. “The Japanese didn't invade India until November. Remember the look on Winston's face yesterday when he received the Japanese declaration of war and heard that the Imperial Guard had landed in Coconda. You would think that seeing the Japanese fleet sailing in the Indian Ocean for two turns in a row would have warned those rosbifs that something was happening.”
“Maybe,” temporised Pierre. “I know the British examined that enemy fleet carefully in September but not in November...”
“... and so they didn't notice the transports loaded with Imperial Marines ...”
“... which walked into the east Indian port and declared the liberation of India,” concluded Pierre.
“Who can understand the British?” asked Paul.
********************************************
January/February 1940
URGENT...URGENT...URGENT... IJN COMMUNICATION... TO ALL UNITS
CHINESE 13TH RESERVE ARMY APPROACHING RAPIDLY AND ALL IMPERIAL ARMY TROOPS ARE CURRENTLY DEPLOYED IN OTHER LOCATIONS. FALL OF CANTON IMMINENT. ALL IJN UNITS BASED IN CANTON TO IMMEDIATELY REBASE IN TOKYO. CARRIERS KAGA, AKAGI,SORYU ETC ETC...OMG THE WHOLE FLIPPING IMPERIAL FLEET HAS BEEN REBASED AND FLIPPED AND IS USELESS FOR THE REST OF THE TURN AND THIS IS ONLY THE FIRST IMPULSE OF THE TURN!
IJNHQ
URGENT...URGENT...URGENT... IJN COMMUNICATION... TO IJNHQ
BRITISH CARRIER FLEET OBSERVED APPROACHING COCONDA. INCOMING CARRIER PLANES ATTACKING IJN TRANSPORTS IN PORT. ONE SUNK AND ONE ABORTED. OUR OFFENSIVE WITH THREE CORPS AGAINST WAVELLS FOUR MILITIA/GARRISON IN CENTRAL INDIA IS STALLED. EXPLAIN SOONEST DIVERSION OF MY THREE CORPS OF REINFORCEMENTS TO TSING-TAO. BRITISH REINFORCEMENTS ARRIVING IN INDIA EVERY TURN. ADDITIONAL TROOPS NEEDED HERE SOONEST.
ADM YAMAMATO
URGENT...URGENT...URGENT... IJN COMMUNICATION ...TO ADM YAMAMATO
BRITISH SUBMARINES OPERATING IN SEA OF JAPAN SINK TWO IMPERIAL CONVOYS. SIAMESE GOVT DEPLOYS ARMY TOO FAR NORTH AND IS UNABLE TO OCCUPY RANGOON. BRITISH MILITIA APPEAR IN RANGOON AND BURMA NOT YET PACIFIED. DETACH TROOPS SOONEST TO OCCUPY CALCUTTA AND RANGOON. SINGAPORE TAKEN BY IMPERIAL TROOPS. BRITISH SUBMARINES OPERATING OUT OF CALCUTTA AND BRITISH CARRIERS OPERATING OUT OF ADEN. TWO IJN SUBMARINES ASSIGNED TO PATROL ARABIAN SEA.
IJNHQ
********************************************
May/June 1940
“But Mein Fuhrer, whined Benito. “The allied Navy is so strong and we are so unready.”
“Dumkopf,” snarled Adolf. “Der British have sent most of their fleet to India to face the Japanese. This is our best chance to take the Suez Canal and link up with the Asiatics. You have most of your army at Bardia. Strike now!”
“But the French might...”
“Der Frogs are worse than dumkopfs! They sent all of their light ships to French Equatorial Africa, New Caledonia and other asian ports. They dare not face you.”
“They have seven battleships in Marseille.”
“And I have seven Panzer Corps in Holland with another seventy about to strike through Belgium.”
Benito didn't dare to correct der Fuhrer's obvious deficiency in mathematics.
“But the British... “ he whined.”
“Listen to me Benito,” hissed Adolf urgently. “The British have landed their army in western Holland and committed themselves too far to the north. Even as we speak our Panzers are slicing into Belgium. There is brilliant sunshine all through Europe and nothing can stop my Luftwaffe.”
“Well maybe I could...”
“Hit his convoys now!” urged Adolf. “Der Japanese have already sunk two of his transports and I have found that Winston has left Malta ungarissoned.”
“Malta is ungarissoned?” said Benito in a slightly braver voice.
“Ungarissoned!” repeated Adolf.
The two dictators looked at each other.
“Who can understand the British?” asked Benito.
********************************************
May/June 1940
The IJN Soryu rode easily over the swells as it bravely ran away. Meeting three Commonwealth carriers hadn't been part of Admiral Yakamaka's plan when he ordered his fleet into the Arabian sea. Now the IJN Hiryu was at the bottom of the sea and his plans for a port strike on Aden were permanently postponed.
“Perhaps the enemy carrier was also sunk?” ventured his Flag Captain. “Our pilots report two bomb hits on her flight deck.”
“They also positively identified her as the Ark Royal,” pointed out Yakamaka. If they had hit either of the other British carriers then I would agree, but I fear that after four months in drydock we will meet that ship again.... and we have lost a carrier permanently.”
“Our navy is still the strongest in the Pacific.”
“Perhaps,” said Yakamaka. “But we have no carriers under construction and the enemy port strike on Coconda sunk our transport fleet.”
Admiral Yakamaka was aware that as the Admiral commanding a failed attack he had a personal appointment with the short stabbing sword that was hanging in his cabin. After the fleet was safely returned to Bangkok he would keep that appointment and thereby permanently deprive the Empire of his own undoubted genius.
“Stupid British,” he thought to himself.
********************************************
May/June 1940
Merde!
Pierre leaned against the 47mm barrel of his anti-tank gun and stared around at the battered ruins of Brussels. The heaped carcasses of two five point French infantry units lay dead in the dust around him but his own anti-tank unit had lived to fight another day. Out in the suburbs of the Belgium capital the German attackers cleared away their casualties and reorganised their air force. Pierre doubted that the Boche could mount another attack on Brussels before July and, even if they did, the two French six point infantry units now moving into the Brussels defences would make it a tough fight. Pierre and his guns shouldn't have been there of course. The original agreement with Perfidious Albion had specified that the British would defend Brussels if the Germans invaded but in January the British had muttered something about 'Coconda' and removed half of their Expeditionary Force from the sacred soil of France. Now the French army needed to hold the line from Brussels to the Swiss border while the rosbifs clung to their two hex enclave straddling the Holland-Belgium border. If only the rosbifs would take over the defence of Brussels then Pierre knew his unit would be redeployed to Marseilles to lead the charge across the Alpes and into the Po valley. It wouldn't happen this year and unless a miracle happened it wouldn't even happen in 1941. The only interesting news was the announcement of France's declaration of war on Italy and the sailing of seven French battleships to meet the four battleships and five cruisers that the Italians had left in the western Mediterranean after they had sent seven cruisers into the eastern Mediterranean to support General Balbos attack on Egypt. The French and the Italian fleets had missed each other in the fog and Balbo had occupied Cairo and Alexandria. Things were looking bad for Egypt.
********************************************
July/August 1940
“A double victory my friend.”
Benito was in a good mood. His navy had sunk the French battleship 'Strasbourg' in the Eastern Mediterranean on the same impulse that the Germans had forced their way into the Maginot line and taken the French city of Strasbourg.
“Hmmmm.”
Adolf was certainly quiet today.
“We are only one hex from the Suez Canal.” continued Benito. “The Japanese are patrolling the Arabian sea and the Americans still say nothing.”
“Hmmmm.”
Benito set down his glass. Der Fuhrer was certainly in a bad mood.
“We need to talk about Gibraltar,” he said. “And maybe Greece.”
“Forget Gibraltar!” snarled Adolph. “I need to conquer France! September is coming and my Panzers are stopped on the border. Brussels still holds out and the French air force is growing every turn.”
********************************************
The serious stuff
A fairly standard set of German opening conquered Poland and Denmark then redeployed westward for a MA40 DOW on Holland and Belgium. The opportunistic Italians DOWd Britain in MA40, occupied an undefended Malta then pushed rapidly on Suez, fought their way into Cairo and sat facing the British rearguard one hex west of the Suez Canal. The French Army occupied and successfully defended Brussels, forcing the Panzers to slide south and attempt repeated assaults on the Maginot Line. Strasbourg fell in JA40 and Metz in SO40.
During the meanwhilst, the ND39 DOW by Japan on the Commonwealth certainly caught the allies by surprise but the invasion of India bogged down when Britain systematically stripped the Middle East to land forces to reinforce the Pacific. Japan was forced temporarily onto the defensive when the Chinese 13th Reserve Army marched into an ungarissoned Canton on the first impulse of JF40 and forced the entire Japanese fleet to flip, rebase and then sit out the rest of the turn in Tokyo. British subs based in Calcutta ravaged Japanese convoys and British carriers from Aden launched a Port strike on the Japanese bridgehead at Cocona sinking a much needed transport. German, Italian and Japanese subs returned the favour causing a tactical retreat of the British Merchant Marine from Asia. Germany claimed Lithuania in MJ40 and Latvia in JA40, prompting Russia to revoke the Pact, invade Persia then claim Bessabarabia in SO40.
After a year of war Japan had conquered NEI and Borneo but the front lines in China and India had stagnated and there was much speculation in the Allied camp about where Japan would find the troops to face the rapidly approaching American DOW. In Europe the Germans were grinding through the Maginot Line and it seemed doubtful that Paris would fall before the Americans (and the Russians) declared war on Germany. ND40 and JF41 passed with the Germans enlarging their Metz/Strasbourg bridgehead by only one hex per turn and the Japanese occupying an ungarrisoned Ceylon and edging around the southern end of the British line in India to occupy Calacut.
By MA41 the Japanese had exhausted the British fleet and were regularly patrolling the Arabian Sea which placed the British remnant in Egypt out of supply and allowed General Balbo's Italian legions to conquer Suez and look forward to linking up with the Japanese. At this point the Axis were on the cusp of victory – France's Army was still substantial but without the Maginot Line to anchor the defence the future held only a fighting retreat to Paris and inevitable Vichification. The British force in Brussels had German units on three hexsides and the future retreat of France meant that they needed to prepare escape routes via French ports. The Russians had redeployed the bulk of their army to face the Rumanians and the writing was on the wall for the Balkans.
MJ41 saws the destruction of the final British troops in Suez leaving a wing of Spitfire II's rebasing themselves into oblivion in the Syrian desert. Across the border in recently-conquered Iraq the Russians gazed impassively at the final destruction of the capitalists. Over in the Indian ocean the Japanese debarked in Italian Samaliland and began the long march south to Pretoria. No British troops stood in their way. Only Aden held out against the Axis pincers.
**************************************************************
At this point my three day leave pass expired and I packed up wife and kids and went home (naturally I played France). I'm betting on an Allied victory but we won't know for another week until the WiFCon finishes. Even if the Axis win the game there will be a nominal protest because EVERYONE forgot to ask Germany to take US Entry chits out for the Russo-German border during 1940, and therefore the additional entry chits picked by the US because of the early Japanese DOW on England were badly diluted (lots of 1939/40 zeros and ones which should have been picked from the pool before the 1941 chits were added). Too late to fix it up now but it certainly delayed the US Production Ramp up and set war entry back into a historic timetable.
It was great to get my hands dirty with the counters again and the event cleared out some of the ghosts of Wif 5 that had been confusing my playtesting.