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So I've played through a few games now but my current effort is up to Mar/Apr 1942. I thought maybe people would be interested in seeing the war minus the Fall Gelb part at the beginning - the second half of the war.

As the war is already 2.5 years old therefore, a chronology.

In 1939, Poland and Denmark both were hoovered up easily by the Axis. The USSR conquered Persia.

In 1940, France was attacked in January as everything was going well for Germany and the weather was very good. France folded quicker than superman doing the laundry with a breakthrough right in the centre of the front. Germany didn't even have to use a single o-chit. Yugoslavia was then conquered. Hungary and Romania aligned. the USSR claimed Bessarabia and challenged the Finns in late 1940 with most of their army/airforce concentrated around Finland, both claims were unchallenged.

Japan was doing okay against China at this point but nothing special. The CW busied itself trying to deal with Italy as Italy invaded Greece.

1941, Italy conquers Greece, there's a fair bit of fighting with the CW. The italian fleet is intact while the CW suffered losses, Prince of Wales included. A U-boat campaign stretches the Royal Navy super thin, so for now the Med has an Italian advantage, and the CW isn't in a very good position, though the Eastern Med at least remains under RN comamnd mostly which means the North Africa campaign goes well, but two attempted invasions of Sardinia go very badly indeed, costing the CW a number of units and some TRS. Germany invades the USSR, but the weather is absolutely terrible unlike in 1940 and progress is fairly slow.

The war in China is starting to go badly for Japan, most of the US options involve embargoes and the like and the Red Chinese especially do a pretty good job. Near the end of '41 is the oil embargo and Japan's economy near collapses, they declare war on the CW and try and snag Palembang but attempt #1 ends in disaster because I'm a noob at amphibious operations and they tried landing in the city area and got hosed by the notional unit despite all the support in the world. Lucky they have a synth oil online or it'd be over at that point but they scrape up attempt #2 and manage to get some Dutch East Indies oil. While they are being noobs CW cruisers raid their convoys and inflict heavy damage, but then the oil si back, the Kido Butai is refuelled, the CW chased away (for now) and oil secured, but while this is going on the Chinese are kicking their ar5e on the land so their position is still very bad.

1942, the Germans get as far as the Dnieper in terrible weather. The USSR suffers heavy loss, but they got a LOT of infantry due to reinforce soon - though the German army is pretty big too, the Luftwaffe is twice the size of the Red airforce, and the Germans still have two unused O-chits. The US declares war on Germany, mainly because the U-boats are slaughtering CW convoys and the CW really, REALLY needs the help at sea. The CW economy is so drained they dont have a single strategic bomber, and their losses in the Med and convoy disruptions have meant their armed forces havn't really kept up with the others.

Japan is still not at war with the US but the US has been at war with Germany for a while and so the US is getting dug in across the Pacific - not good for Japan...


Here's the UK area at the moment, Allied impulse 1 of Mar/Apr 1942. :-

The eastern front...

The Med area in 42 - most of the Italian army is up on the Turkish border but I think that's probably a bad idea, so I'm thinking of aborting that and having them try harder for Suez now that Greece is done and dusted and they can use Athens to base a strike force close to the Royal Navy.

Things really aren't going well for Japan at all in China... a long period without oil, some amazingly bad partisan problems, an ever enlarging Chinese army... China has a synth oil plant up and running and lend leased a US bomber, that really isn't helping either, plus Mao's army is surprisingly good!

Incidentally all the optional rules are in play with the exception of Nationalist Chinese attack weakness so Chiang has teeth in this too.

Japan has the oil under control but that's about it.

Malaya is relatively secure, I say relatively as the CW units are a bit out of position atm as you can see. Singapore has an additional fort been purchased to cover one of the landside hexes. CW cruisers raided the China Sea to deadly effect while the IJN was laid up for lack of fuel, t hey are still at Singapore atm. CW submarines are still being a pain even now, especially the Dutch one! Japan has very few spare convoy points so losses are unacceptable.

War hasn't reached the PI yet.

Or Manchuria... the Japanese force has been stripped from beyond the minimum as China runs rings around them. The USSR is too busy to capitalise on that... yet.

No war between Japan and USA yet, though it'll be soon with tension around the 50 mark. But the US being at war with GErmany has enabled rapid expansion, so the Solomons is already garrisoned.

CW takes a naval action, fair bit of dancing around in the Atlantic as convoy protection is ordered.

There's a sizable CW fleet stuck at Malta out of supply thanks to an Italian victory in the Eastern Med last turn. The Italian navy is gigantic but has only 1 small carrier, the CW has to risk it and rely on their carriers...

US takes a naval too, sends Enterprise to the Coral Sea, there are 3 CVs there now. Nimitz and a MAR arrive at Rabaul.

A fleet heads to the Central Atlantic as well, which is vulnerable to u-boats.

CW subs try searching in the China Sea - neither find targets but the guys in the South China Sea find the IJN...

Could be worse. The subs abort to Batavia.

No airfarce being used anywhere by the Allies as the weather is uniformly bad.

Chinese forces close in around the unfortunate Japanese...

Soviet ground troops move up to the Dnieper... Yeremenko, who was stranded in the Pripet Marshes in the good weather, gets to move out a bit now it's cold again. He heads west, intent on causing trouble.

Italy takes a naval, Japan a combined, Germany a land.

The Italian fleet sorties to challenge the CW in the western med because they wanna keep the CW fleet in Malta (Which is big, 33 ships) without supply. The CW gambled earlier in the year and lost time to pay. Land based air and a few cruisers guard the convoys by Italy. Italy has some hefty battleships and is gonna blow the CW away if they get a good search roll. OTOH, the CW has the higher search box.

Italian and CW fleets fail to find each other in the western Med.

The Japanese use their combined to move an AMPH to the Sea of Japan and load some militia onto it, planning on booting that partisan out of Shanghai.

The Germans move up a little in the beastly weather, Manstein and some reinforcing armour go to Warsaw to block Yeremenko.

No attacking on land or air.

Weather improves a bit... not all that much mind, but a bit. Not enough to risk O-chits for Germany I think, I am intent on using those so they get a bit of oomph to break those lines at the Dnieper especially.

Looks pretty interesting.

US takes a naval, everybody else land.

The US doesnt have much they can do, some reorged transports head back from the UK to the East Coast.

No strategic bombing from the UK despite the nice weather as the RAF is tiny, no bombers. Not so the USSR, which sends 2 bombers against Ploesti from bases in the Crimea. The Germans have a 6 factor fighter next to Ploesti, so its a night raid. The Germans send up their Bf109 for a bit of night fighting (they dont have any true night fighters atm), and get a lucky roll.

No lucky rolls for Ivan at Ploesti.