Solitaire game starting late '42

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I thought I'd write an AAR of this one to see if people, if they are interested in it at all, have any comments which I can use for one of the sides. Also as its quite late in the war compared to the other AARs I've seen so maybe it'll make it unique from that point of view.

The Story So Far...

It was a Global War scenario and broadly progressed as the real war did. Poland swiftly fell, and Germany conquered France in summer 1940, despite France being propped up with a lot of Commonwealth resources. They even did it without using any o-chits.

Italy meanwhile attacked the Commonwealth early in 1940, and drove to the Suez canal. They got some decent combat roll, but they were stalemated at the Nile, just about. Meanwhile Germany conquered Norway and Yugoslavia, aligned Hungary and Romania. Russia conquered Persia, and China/Japan beat on each other fairly ineffectually. Japan was really trying to build up an air force though so the ground commitment was fairly low.

1941 saw Italy attack Greece and make some progress before being stopped, just about again, by the Commonwealth in the Pindus Mountains just before the Greek army collapsed entirely (Greece was down to one INF). After that, stalemate again, and both sides were happy to more or less leave it there. The Commonwealth spent some time taking out the isolated units in Egypt, but it took a while.

Germany attacked Russia early 1941, but it didn't really go all that well. The Russian defensive lines were quite far back to avoid surprise attack, around Vitebsk and Kiev, and the Germans got pretty badly bogged down despite trying to use an o-chit to break the deadlock in the south. The Russians played very defensively though, no attacks at all, and had been building iNF pretty much from the start, so maybe not too surprising.

Summer 1941 saw the Commonwealth really focusing on Italy though also taking some major losses in the Atlantic from German uboats. Maybe Germany built too many uboats given the failures on the eastern front. CW income was down to about 15 ish from 24 for most of 1941 though and they were building 3-5 convoys a turn just to tread water. This didn't stop them really pressuring Italy quite hard though in the Med, pretty much wiping out the Italian fleet, which is mostly damaged now. Germany helped with a Bf110 fighter which helped cover Sparviero's in the 3 box while the Commonwealth took Sicily and Sardinia with some fairly light losses but mostly due to luck, one notable loss was the Renown which was sunk by a Sparviero.

Japan/China continued to bounce off each other through 1941.

1942, in summer Germany made more progress than they had in 1941 and really started stretching the Russian lines quite thin. Over the winter they managed to focus more on ground forces which made a difference, also some stunning bad rolls for the Russians in '42 meant that their airforce was pretty much annihilated despite having more fighters than the Germans had at one point. the Germans on the southern front captured Stalino and broke through to the north, while on the northern front Vitebsk fell and Yeremenko withdrew in the direction of Leningrad being chased by von Bock, while Guderian kept pressing east and captured Smolensk, getting over the Dnieper into the bargain.

Japan deemed its preparations ready and declared war on the Commonwealth in summer 42. the Dutch East Indies, Rabaul and the Solomons were all captured pretty much straight away but the CW had reinforced Malaya with a white print Indian MECH and a South African INF and it still hasn't been captured. An attempt by the Japanese to land in Burma with two MAR resulted in losing both due to a bad roll, so that was a risk that really cramped their style, but intent on still expanding they then landed on Australia and took Brisbane and ROckhampton though there's clearly nto enough troops as it stands to conquer Australia.

The US declared war on Germany/Italy in 42 as well and started shovelling air units over mostly, lots of strategic bombers to the UK and a P38 and some tactical bombers to the Med. In the Pacific the Americans are moving to fairly forward bases in readiness but there's no war with Japan yet.

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Here's the eastern front on the current date, impulse #3 of Sep/Oct 42...

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Italy has been turned into a fortress though their navy is down to a total of 33 naval factors, without any SUBs or transports.

The Greece front line has been stable for months.

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3 American and 2 CW strategic bombers in the UK that are only just starting to make their appearance felt.



The Bismarck and 3 cruisers are at Bordeaux, along with five speed 5 SUBs currently. More damaged/under construction but with the USN in the war might ease back on the German navy.

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The IJN makes regular raids into the Bay of Bengal. Despite that the CW managed to get an INF into Burma while at war with the Japanese, however as the CW eastern fleet is quite weak and has no air support they are clearly totally outmatched while they are busy in the Med.

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Still fighting in Malaya, but surely a matter of time...

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Japan's half assed landing on Australia in the urge to spread everywhere they could... The Japanese invasion force is only 9 combat factors, and there's 13 Australian combat factors, so clearly they won't be getting anywhere until troops are freed up elsewhere.

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While not at war the Americans are quite far forward in the Pacific. Midway, Tarawa and Suva all have significant American forces. 4 SUBs are waiting at Dutch Harbor.

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So its impulse #3, Sep/Oct 1942.

China - land action
CW - land action
US - air action
USSR - land action

Unfortunately Allied troops in the Med last turn had a bit of an upset, the P38G and Beaufighter they had there both got shot down. On the plus side both Italian NAVs also got shot down, so the only threat to any sea forces there is the Italian navy.
A Vildebeest in Gibraltar goes to the 3 box of Cape st Vincent to stop uboats but thats it for naval air.

Probably the main event of the impulse, strategic bombing of the Ruhr - 3 production points destroyed by the USAAF.

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The USSR front line is in a pretty bad way at the moment on the verge of being rolled up, so some redeployment is in order - at least its a storm.

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So it got reorganised. 2nd Siberian got disorganised in the process but as its a white print unit I guessed that was ok..ish.

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Nationalist China can't do a whole lot where the bulk of their forces are but wait for deliverance from something. On the plus side they won't be dislodged any time soon either.

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Canadians unload at Palermo, artillery unloads on Italy... II Inf is on an AMPH so that and the divisions in the Med hold up for now to wait for an opportunity should it present itself.

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It's a pretty long shot but Mao's forces attack in the mountains. The Japanese have been softened up by Chiang's bombers (how nice, wonder if that'll be in communist propaganda postwar). It's still a long shot though, but not that bad for a mountain hex. the Communist Chinese can more easily replace those troops, I figurre, as the Japanese are very, very spread out.

Turns out the gamble works out I think. Worth it to clear the mountains? The Japanese used their Helen nearby to try and bolster the defence.

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The CW has a pretty big fleet in the Bay of Biscay to keep Bismarck bottles up and also to protect the TRN's that are moving around there. Germany decides not to send their single BB out to do battle with that.. even if it is split into two mostly.

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The Italian fleet sallies into the Western Med. They have the naval factors but 2 CW CVs and a couple of land based air means they got to be lucky, but its either that or be bombed in port. As it is nobody finds anything this turn in the western med.

The Faeroes Gap is a dangerous place for German uboats with the Sunderland there, and the Aliies roll a 1, sending Donitz's boys back to base to try again some other turn.

Howeever a single uboat coming from Kiel attacks undefended convoys in the Norwegian Sea and sinks 2 convoy points out of 2, severing the arctic link to Russia. Russia is currently sending oil to the CW (!) due to heavy naval fighting in 1941 and a lack of American oil due not having enough entry.

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The Japanese do some minor movement around China. A white print unit moves into a mountain square next to the communists and gets itself disorganised in so doing but after that assault the communists have only a couple of units able to attack which isnt going to be enough I think. can't be lucky twice.

19 more factors of ground troops unload at Malaya to hopefully bring a speedy conclusion if the weather breaks.

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Looks like the next impulse is going to be pretty quiet aside from naval actions.

Slim odds (30%) but the Allies all pass, hoping for the 30% end of turn chance. Only thing I can think they could do really is use the two Lancasters, and as far as those various subs are concerned keeping the number of engagements to a minimum seems to suit the Allies.

Doesn't happen though, on a roll of 4.

So back to the Axis again. They all take combined actions to activate their naval units. Incidentally last turn when Germany took a naval action as well as the subs they took their AMPH and TRN out into the Baltic with a small escort to convoy reinforcements to Riga, a minor thing I didn't note, so the actionw ill let them disembark.

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There's a number of chances but as it happens the only success is the CW rolling a 1 in the Bay of Bengal. Which they use to surface attack the Japanese submarines in the 3 box while the main fleet is in the 2 box.

I was pondering an avoid combat option but those subs are pretty nasty... and maybe worth messing up.

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Subs -> messed up.

Manchester and Gloucester got aborted. 1 sub was damaged, both subs were aborted, not exactly as good as it can get.