At the request of Herr Oberst

[cpdeyoung]

March 16, 1942 : Still battling in another wintry month.

[cpdeyoung]

March 24, 1942 : Both our seiges will be resolved successfully. Two more cities to capture in the Soviet Union.

The Finns are fighting, but for them the end of the long war with the Soviets means peace.

[cpdeyoung]

April 1, 1942 : We push towards completion in Russia.

We think about our options in the West.

[cpdeyoung]

April 9, 1942 : I spoke with the Oberst on his return from Berlin and he says the government would gladly accept peace with the West after the fall of the Soviet Union. The thinking there is that we have perhaps been too successful and that the West still would rather defeat us than settle for a Axis dominated Europe. If so we must convince them that our defeat will be an option they do not want to attempt. How strong is America?

[cpdeyoung]

April 16, 1942 : The Oberst has found that the KM has launched a huge new fleet, which is being called the Russia fleet since all the ships are named after cities where we had victories in our eastern campaign. Our allies in the Med are sailing to the Atlantic, including the brand new aircraft carrier Romania, escorted by Italian and Turkish battleships. A massive amount of attack transports has been purchased and brought to the coast across from southern England. Most of the Luftwaffe from the East is flying west, and all the talk is of a campaign against Great Britain in the Spring.

From the North.

[cpdeyoung]

April 24, 1942 : The Finns are doing well, but are finding many Soviet units, including a strategic bombing unit. The Finns are not our formal allies but have done well for us. They have destroyed 377.78 SP and tied up many, many units. The Soviets would have done well to have paid much more attention to them in the beginning.

[cpdeyoung]

May 1, 1942 : Very little to celebrate in the Soviet Union.

[cpdeyoung]

May 9, 1942 : Our preparations continue in the West, but we have not started the recon process.

[cpdeyoung]

May 16, 1942 : We think the Soviets are finished. The next week will tell.

[cpdeyoung]

May 24, 1942 : We are all celebrating.

[Haplo_Patryn]

Congratulations for your victory in the east front. Good luck in the west! [;)]

[cpdeyoung]

(Thanks!)

June 1, 1942 : We destroyed a Polish armoured division, and brought Italians to British soil.

[cpdeyoung]

June 9, 1942 : We take part of London.

[cpdeyoung]

June 16, 1942 : More progress. We try and bring Spain in.

[cpdeyoung]

June 24, 1942 : Still more progress, but the British diplomats have put pressure on the Spanish. Gibraltar, of course is the prize.

[cpdeyoung]

July 1, 1942 : The Americans show their hand, but not in England, rather with an invasion of North Africa.

What will the Americans look like? What tech levels will they have?

[cpdeyoung]

July 9, 1942 : The Germans drive into northern England. The Italians prepare to face the Ameicans.

[cpdeyoung]

July 16, 1942 : Peace at last. England and America have realized that the status quo cannot be changed. Both nations are very weak just now. We have used our good offices to convince the Pacific powers to agree to an armistice, but the Americans are hardly happy and we expect the war there may heat up again. Unless Japan finds some way to amielorate them we expect a storm over the Pacific soon.

Germany has no desire to try and police the East, and already smaller states are rising up to replace the Soviet Union. Poland's petion for nationhood has been granted, and the French have regained Paris, but readjustments have been made to their eastern border. Great Britain has acceeded to the loss of all Mediteranean possesions, which have gone to a far stronger Italy.

The Oberst did not live to see the war's end. He was killed in a plane crash near Oran where he was flying to meet with the Italians. I feel it is a great loss for Germany as leaders like him will be needed to make the peace work. He was never the same after the death of his son in battle near Kiev.

[Magpius]

Brilliant AAR,[&o]
but it was disappointing not to see any US aggression, I was really looking forward to see how they would go.
also given such little UK presence in Europe I thought they would have been defensively better prepared, at least in term of tech levels.
What difficulty setting were you playing on? 

[cpdeyoung]

This was a plain vanilla, out of the box, each country at normal game. As I remember the USA had a mech corps and three infantry divisions in Algeria. The Italians would have wiped them out. England was a pushover and I have to blame the constant air attacks the RAF made on almost random garrison units in the West. Even this cannot quite explain how very weak they were. I guess the Italian campaign to take Egypt away lowered the PP level a lot. ... Oops, am forgetting the massive U-Boat campaign I waged which must have had a big effect. I put many U-Boats out there and I supported them with surface forces as soon as I could. The Allied fleets were destroyed piecemeal, and when the invasion of Great Britain came the RN and USN never showed any response. I believe they were sunk. In any case the Axis fleet was absoutely dominant.

Germany never had a problem with production. I built remarkably little after the initial Barbarossa army was constructed. The Soviets were very crafty on defense, but the fixed, small garrison at the center of an important city weakens them. They started with no air, but by the end had too much. Both Great Britain and the USSR built strategic bombers but the cost to them was not offset by damage to me. I was in a constant state of production surplus.

The USA probably did not have time to get production and force level ramped up. This was a very short war, although fighting it seemed a long struggle. ... I just reloaded the second to last week of the battle, and looked at the USA. It had a small to medium sized army back in the states, nothing above L2 tech, and only one corps which was built out enough to stand with the Italians. This is about right for a mid 1942 sized USA, but nothing, nothing like the German Army, or even the Italian.

For what it is worth I did not know that the peace I was offered would be with the whole Western Alliance, rather, I thought it was Great Britain surrendering. I was certainly willing to stop the war, however. This was an interesting game for me to play as I became more familliar with the 1.6 scheme.

By the way I believe it was your counter set I enjoyed using throughout, thank you.

Chuck