ETO Grumpymel vs Hatemf90 - Allied Thread

[GrumpyMel]

Starting an AAR for my game of ETO against Hatemf90 where I am playing the Allies. So no peaking for Axis. Everyone else is welcome.

[GrumpyMel]

Sept 1, 1939.

This is my first opportunity to play ETO vs a real opponent so I'm quite excited. I played a couple test games against myself when designing scenerio to check for bugs and get a feel of how it played...but I've yet to try my luck with it against another human intellect....and other players can always surprise you with what they come up with...even if your the scenerio designer...so I'm really looking forward to this.

I'm playing the Allies and Hatemf90 is playing Axis....we haven't picked a Soviet player yet because they can take awhile to become active in this scenerio. As the Allies, Sept of '39 is a fairly daunting situation...as one might well imagine. Although in many ways, I actually prefer this over the Axis position as it really makes you feel like you are holding things together with spit and bailing wire (and maybe a little duct tape) which can be a bit of a fun position to be in.

Pictured below is the breifing screen which shows the Allied player some of his most important vital stats at the start of each turn. The thing you really want to pay attention to at the start of the game is your War Footing (circled). This statistic determines how efficiently you produce as well as the combat effectiveness of your troops. As the Allies we start out at a significant disadvantage here as the Axis, those stinkers, are well prepaired for the start of hostilties... while peace-loving democracies that we are, we've mostly been caugt with our boxers down around our ankles. We can raise these numbers by playing action cards which will bring our countries economy and millitary more into a war time footing.

However these action cards cost a significant number of PP's... so we've got to really be carefull about planning out our strategy, building and production of units...as we can't afford to do everything we would want to do at start...everything is a balancing act.

Your most important task as the Allies in the beginning is to figure out how much production you are going to devote to raising war footing...and which nations war footing you will raise. At the very begining, I don't even have enough PP's to raise anything.

My strategy as the Allies is to build enough PP's each turn to at least raise the UK's war footing every turn. I'll balance this along with building enough units to try to deal somewhat with the Axis onslaught. I'm picking the UK because it has a larger economy then France and the Minors and has a much better chance to hold it's territory. It also starts out with a significantly higher rating then the others. This means that I'll mostly try to build combat units from Britain and her dominions and use the other nations to produce PP's. The US's economy is huge...but it will be quite some time before it sheds it's neutrality. So for now, Rule Britania.. Long Live the Empire!

[GrumpyMel]

This was the screen that greated me upon opening my turn. All these losses and kills came from Poland. It's no surprise that Poland took a beating in the opening turn of the German assault. They can't really survive in this scenerio, but they do have a decent sized army...which means they can fight!

Thier job is to cost the Axis time and blood....and my goal is to maximize the amount of both it will take before they finally succumb. Even though they are loosing on the order of 1:5 here...they really aren't doing such a bad job at causing Axis casualties. Every unit that I kill here is one less that will be availble for the invasion of France.

[GrumpyMel]

You can see here what I'm trying to do in Poland with this screenshot of the northern portion of the country from the end of my turn. Basicaly, I know if I attempt to hold forward positions against the Germans they'll go through me like swiss cheese and pocket my forces to be killed off piecemeal. Thus I give a bit of ground to buy time to form cohesive lines...and leave a few token straglers to delay the Axis advance. I know these lines won't hold for very long either...but the Germans will have to advance a bit to contact them...and at least thier foot forces might not be able to engage right away. In the meantime, I might be able to cause some casualties if the Axis player gets a bit overzealous with his advances. Once these lines are shot, I'll abandon them and pull back to a tighter circle of defense...but I want to cost the Axis some blood before I do.

[GrumpyMel]

Almost all the action is in Poland....elsewhere we are mostly involved in setting our affairs in order...in anticipation of the long fight ahead. We do engage in a few bombing raids and artillery strikes where they present themselves. Our most succesfull one is Bomber Commands ceremonial opening bombardment of Bremerhaven. This one should make the Evening Papers.

At the start of the game, the Luftwaffe is mostly involved in Poland running ground support missions. So the Western Air Forces have a very breif window of opportunity to conduct operations with little opposition. This window won't last long, so it's important to make the most of it. Every little bit of Axis production we can knock out will help in the long run. Soon the skies over Western Europe will be swarming with Messerchmidts, but for now they are clear and our bombers can fly safely.

[RufusTFirefly]

Do you use any house rules?

As I tried to get air tech IV as quick as possible (in other words: asap), 82ndTrooper was forced to develop that tech level too. So we realized that it makes sense to agree, not to develop a tech level earlier than the time period that it was designed for according to the comment on the card.

Looking foreward to your reports how you manage to save the free world from that dark force. I am trying this for 72 turns now and there is not yet really a bright light at the end of the tunnel.

[GrumpyMel]

ORIGINAL: RufusTFirefly

Do you use any house rules?

As I tried to get air tech IV as quick as possible (in other words: asap), 82ndTrooper was forced to develop that tech level too. So we realized that it makes sense to agree, not to develop a tech level earlier than the time period that it was designed for according to the comment on the card.

Looking foreward to your reports how you manage to save the free world from that dark force. I am trying this for 72 turns now and there is not yet really a bright light at the end of the tunnel.

Well the version we are playing has the Decreasing Tech (tech's cost double PP's if you research them before the historical date) costs built in... so we could tech up if we wanted to...but I think it would be prohibitively expensive to do much of that.

We are playing with...

- no zero strength counters
- no invasion of "off-map" areas

and I personaly am going to play with national equipment (i.e. France builds French equipment not British) but Hatemf isn't bound by that.

We'll see how it goes. The Axis is supposed to be pretty daunting at the start...but I'm hoping the Allies will be able to weather the storm and turn things around.

Has the US activated in your game yet?

[RufusTFirefly]

ORIGINAL: GrumpyMel

and I personaly am going to play with national equipment (i.e. France builds French equipment not British) but Hatemf isn't bound by that.

We'll see how it goes. The Axis is supposed to be pretty daunting at the start...but I'm hoping the Allies will be able to weather the storm and turn things around.

Has the US activated in your game yet?

Using only the national equipment is something I really enjoy in the game. Although I am no longer keeping that role strictly. I was enoyed by the high losses of fihgters that I thought were caused by Italien interceptors serving in German Luftwaffe. So I decided to deploy US Mustangs in Britain. Their hitpoints and attack and defence values do not differ much from that of Hawker Tempest, but the range is nearly double of the range of British interceptors (you know, but this remark is meant for those who have not yet had the possibility to play the game). Last turn it was the first time this was showing up in game. My Mustangs at a base in Near East fought a battle with German fighters somewhere in the center of Turkey.

And although armored tech level III enables me to deploy stronger British tanks, I decided to build some M3 Lee/Grant in Near East. It is already close to historical situation as the M3 was used by the British army in North Africa in 1942.

US is not yet activated. From turn 40 onwards the activation number is swinging up and down between - 10 and +39. It had been at +39 somewhere in the early 40s, so I thought it might soon pass the limit of +44. It would have been much to early and 82ndTrooper would have been unable to win the game. From turn 60 onwards the numbers are mainly above +20 and might pass the limit within the turns left of 1942. The high number appearing early made me thing if there should be trigger that avoids a very early wakeup of US. As well a trigger might be useful that brings Italy in in case it takes too long time. In our game Italy is still sleeping - and my British units that are waiting for attack have nearly drowned in dust of the African desert - dont know whether the engines will still work when the units are ordered to march and whether the soldiers are still able to fight or have become successful farmers raising palms at Marsa Matruh.

[GrumpyMel]

ORIGINAL: RufusTFirefly

ORIGINAL: GrumpyMel

and I personaly am going to play with national equipment (i.e. France builds French equipment not British) but Hatemf isn't bound by that.

We'll see how it goes. The Axis is supposed to be pretty daunting at the start...but I'm hoping the Allies will be able to weather the storm and turn things around.

Has the US activated in your game yet?

Using only the national equipment is something I really enjoy in the game. Although I am no longer keeping that role strictly. I was enoyed by the high losses of fihgters that I thought were caused by Italien interceptors serving in German Luftwaffe. So I decided to deploy US Mustangs in Britain. Their hitpoints and attack and defence values do not differ much from that of Hawker Tempest, but the range is nearly double of the range of British interceptors (you know, but this remark is meant for those who have not yet had the possibility to play the game). Last turn it was the first time this was showing up in game. My Mustangs at a base in Near East fought a battle with German fighters somewhere in the center of Turkey.

And although armored tech level III enables me to deploy stronger British tanks, I decided to build some M3 Lee/Grant in Near East. It is already close to historical situation as the M3 was used by the British army in North Africa in 1942.

US is not yet activated. From turn 40 onwards the activation number is swinging up and down between - 10 and +39. It had been at +39 somewhere in the early 40s, so I thought it might soon pass the limit of +44. It would have been much to early and 82ndTrooper would have been unable to win the game. From turn 60 onwards the numbers are mainly above +20 and might pass the limit within the turns left of 1942. The high number appearing early made me thing if there should be trigger that avoids a very early wakeup of US. As well a trigger might be useful that brings Italy in in case it takes too long time. In our game Italy is still sleeping - and my British units that are waiting for attack have nearly drowned in dust of the African desert - dont know whether the engines will still work when the units are ordered to march and whether the soldiers are still able to fight or have become successful farmers raising palms at Marsa Matruh.

Yeah, well mathmaticaly the US can't activate before the Fall of France....but after that it's just the odds of the dice rolls.

As far as determing the odds, I went with the idea that it was totaly driven by events..and once a country had a decent chance it was bound to happen sooner or later based on the die roll.

I am wondering if I should maybe weight those odds a bit by year as well..at least for the US, USSR and Italy.... the powers with the biggest impact from entry. That way it would still be a random factor...but the varience within those results would be a little less extreme. Maybe something like increase thier activation threshold by 5% in Jan 42 and every 6 month's thereafter....making the odds of them joining increase as the war goes on, regardless of what else is happening.

[GrumpyMel]

ORIGINAL: RufusTFirefly

ORIGINAL: GrumpyMel

and I personaly am going to play with national equipment (i.e. France builds French equipment not British) but Hatemf isn't bound by that.

We'll see how it goes. The Axis is supposed to be pretty daunting at the start...but I'm hoping the Allies will be able to weather the storm and turn things around.

Has the US activated in your game yet?

Using only the national equipment is something I really enjoy in the game. Although I am no longer keeping that role strictly. I was enoyed by the high losses of fihgters that I thought were caused by Italien interceptors serving in German Luftwaffe. So I decided to deploy US Mustangs in Britain. Their hitpoints and attack and defence values do not differ much from that of Hawker Tempest, but the range is nearly double of the range of British interceptors (you know, but this remark is meant for those who have not yet had the possibility to play the game). Last turn it was the first time this was showing up in game. My Mustangs at a base in Near East fought a battle with German fighters somewhere in the center of Turkey.

And although armored tech level III enables me to deploy stronger British tanks, I decided to build some M3 Lee/Grant in Near East. It is already close to historical situation as the M3 was used by the British army in North Africa in 1942.

US is not yet activated. From turn 40 onwards the activation number is swinging up and down between - 10 and +39. It had been at +39 somewhere in the early 40s, so I thought it might soon pass the limit of +44. It would have been much to early and 82ndTrooper would have been unable to win the game. From turn 60 onwards the numbers are mainly above +20 and might pass the limit within the turns left of 1942. The high number appearing early made me thing if there should be trigger that avoids a very early wakeup of US. As well a trigger might be useful that brings Italy in in case it takes too long time. In our game Italy is still sleeping - and my British units that are waiting for attack have nearly drowned in dust of the African desert - dont know whether the engines will still work when the units are ordered to march and whether the soldiers are still able to fight or have become successful farmers raising palms at Marsa Matruh.

Alright, I double checked the numbers... that's why the US isn't in yet. You need them to be below 40 on thier neutrality rating to have a chance to come in. I was surprised given the number of countries the Axis is at war with...but I think most of those countries joined you voluntarly rather then being DOW'd by Germany meaning the US never took the neutrality hit from the DOW. Also Italy still being out is another thing that is keeping the US neutrality higher then it would ordinarly.

Use your diplomatic cards to try to lower US neutrality a few times...if you can get them to 20 or below...they should come in very quickly. They have basicaly a 30% chance to make the attempt every turn...and a -60 neutrality mod...meaning each time they attempt to activate they roll a random number 1-100 and then subtract 60 from the roll...If that's higher then thier current neutrality then they activate... so you need to get them below 40 to have a shot. The lower you get them, the better your chance is.

I may need to tweak thier numbers a bit, not sure yet.... thier neutrality would ordinarly be at least 20 points lower without you doing anything had the War followed the historical course it did (Italy joining and Axis DOW's of Yugoslavia, Greece and Norway)... as it is the random die has hurt you a bit...but you have cards that you can use to change that.

[GrumpyMel]

Back to the AAR. Turn 2 - Sept 16 '39.

You can see the starting situation in Poland pictured below. By pulling back last turn, I avoided the worst of the contact with enemy troops but not completely. The fast moving Axis troops were able to stage a few attacks and thier mobile divisions have Krakow isolated in the south and are threatening to pocket my northern most forces. I'm in a pretty precarious position as you can see, and I'll have to readjust my lines somewhat. However, I'm fast running out of space to pull back to, so next turn I'm expecting major fighting across most of the front.

My opponent also pulled a pretty bold move by strat bombing Warsaw last turn. It's a pretty good ploy as the Polish supply situation can be a bit dicey...and knocking out Warsaw's production can drop the bottom right out of the Polish supply train. He did heavy damage to Warsaw, however he didn't send enough bombers to knock it out completely and between my supply reserve, the fact that I have alot less units around to supply now and the fact that I devoted almost all my production to supply, I had (barely) enough this turn to keep everyones supply at full. Unless he hits Warsaw again next turn, we should be ok...because will have alot less troops alive to feed. On the bright side his air operations last turn did cost him a bomber.

[GrumpyMel]

The situation pretty much everywhere in Poland is grim, but Krakow is probably in the worst shape. The city is isolated and will definately not survive next turn. As a great Union commander (yes believe it or not they actualy had one or two) once said "When in doubt, attack!"

So the Poles taking a play from that book, do what they do best...they line up thier cavalry and charge. We pick the pick the German 1st Mtn Division as a target. It's the weakest unit encircling Krakow and more importantly, it's holding a critical position which if I take will turn the tables on AGS and isolate 2 of their panzer divisions. I soften it up with artillery and hit it from 3 sides. You can see the units involved and the results pictured below.

We route the bloody Gebrigsjagers and isolate 2 german divisions.. a futile and doomed effort I'm sure as I'm sure the overwhelming Axis forces will turn around and crush us next turn for sure. However at least the Poles have been able to earn themselves a last bit of bitter glory for the history books. More importantly, we were able to inflict decent casualties on the Germans for only light losses ourselves, which wouldn't have been the case if we simply sat around and waited for the Germans to drop the hammer on us.

[GrumpyMel]

You can see the picture of my ending position in Poland with the newly redressed lines. I have no doubt that these lines will get torn to pieces next turn, but I'm running out of room to fall back, so I need to stand and fight and see what casualties I can inflict on the Germans before the end.

[GrumpyMel]

Elsewhere in Europe, things are relatively quiet as I continue defensive preperations. We do however take advantage of the Luftwaffe being occupied in Poland to conduct air operations over Western Europe. Cologne is bombed to rubble by successive waves of British, French and Polish bombers. Allied fighters strafe german ground units on the Western Front, scoring some damage. We have succeded in pulling the entire Polish Air Force out of Poland intact. Thier planes are antiquated but can be upgraded to decent models later on...and they can perform some usefull duties in the West..whereas in Poland they would have been pure fodder for Axis fighters. Other then these air strikes, a few artillery barrages along the Maginot Line comprise the entirety of the action in the West.

[GrumpyMel]

As you can see, the Allies have a plethora of options for Action Cards. The most important one right now is raising the UK's War Footing, which I produced enough PP's last turn to play. I'll be doing alot of that over the next few months.

[GrumpyMel]

Finaly pictured are the total losses at the end of Turn 2. The Poles are getting slaughtered as you can see, but not without cost to the Germans. The more Axis units I can cut down now, the less I'll have to deal with in the Spring in France and the Low Countries.

[GrumpyMel]

Turn 3, Oct 1 '39.

As I suspected heavy fighting last turn in Poland as Axis forces pretty much shattered my lines. The Poles didn't do as badly as I thought though making the Axis pay a good price for thier gains and preserving quite a few fighting units as well, as you can see pictured below.

There is not much left to do now though, we start the withdrawl to the Vistula and a last stand at Warsaw and Lubin. I'm hoping to last at the snow falls the 2 turn of November, but chances of that are not good. The campaign will have cost the germans some decent losses before it's over at least.

[GrumpyMel]

This was a surprise to us though, less so that it happaned then the fact that the Axis made know attempt to land paratroopers or marines to take the straits or Copenhagen. Had I expected this, I might have attempted to naval transport some British units to hold the straits. That would have made things much rougher for the Axis to deal with, but I really wasn't prepared to do so...and besides the British Army really isn't ready for a fight yet. Though I could have made things complicated in Denmark, ultimately I would loose and it would cost me valuable regular British divisions to do so. For now, I've held off...we'll see how things look next turn though.

[GrumpyMel]

One thing I noted from the replay of my opponents turn was that the Luftwaffe did not use any of it's fighters in Poland this turn, only bombers and strike aircraft. I had surmised that my bombing campaign in the West had drawn a reaction from my opponent and he had moved his fighters to defend the air space over Western Germany.

As a result I was cautious to use recon flights before selecting any targets for bombing. This paid off as most of the Luftwaffe's fighters seemed concentrated in SouthWestern Germany protecting the air space I had previously bombed, the days of easy unopposed raids for the Allied airmen were over, alas. This knowledge came at the price of 1 French MS406, which had the dubious distinction of being the first Allied aircraft lost of the war when it was shot down during a recon flight over the Seigfried Line.

However with the Luftwaffe's air defences so heavly concentrated in the south, I took a bit of a gamble that they might be spread a bit thin in the north, as I know the BF-109E's don't have great range. I sent a couple Blenheim-IF's (The Brit's long range fighter at the start of the War) one a recon flight over the likely Axis advance into Denmark. This gamble paid off as we spotted Axis ground forces on the move in open terrain...and best of all without any air cover. We sent wave after wave of RAF, French and Polish bombers....and finaly here you can see even the Royal Navies carrier based planes getting into the act...actualy those Skua's seemed to score more damage then any of my other planes.

In this scenerio, aircraft and especialy bombers have great range. Bunching fighters into a large group in one sector as my opponent did...definately helps keep those fighters from getting overwhelmed...but it can leave you with gaps in your air cover... which can be exploited by long range craft.

[GrumpyMel]

Finally you see pictured my kills/losses for the campaign so far and for the turn. Most of the kills actualy came from the unopposed interdiction missions in Denmark as the Poles really weren't in any shape for offensive action this turn. Overall, I'm not displeased with the kill/loss ratio in the campaign given the situation the Allies face at start. It's very early yet though...and the campaigns that truely matter are still to come.