Lightning Tourney Rd. 1: Marshall Art vs. MrQuiet (Global Glory 3.0)

[Marshall Art]

Fall 1940 - In Europe not much happened, except a huge presence of the British in the Central Med. What shall we do about that? It appears that the cost of 3 does not lower fighter build - the Allies have 8 by now, 6 of them stationed on Malta.

Japan torches a factory but the US response is nothing this time (at a chance of 30% of reducing the resource gift). I wonder if actually setting off the US embargo event resets the probability or it stays at the same level for the second & third event check.

[Lucky1]

At this moment, the Italians must be wondering what they signed up for! Damn Duce!

[MrQuiet]

Allies Fall40

Algeria and Southern Persia are included in the growing Allied Circle of Friends (ACF)
Again Untrained Allied CAG pilots try there luck at sinking axis vessles.
To make it easier this time we tied the ships to docks and picked on weak units. See Screenshot

Axis sub left France and survied op-fire in the fall but was promptly hunted down with caveman ASW tec.
We scratched enough paint to send it home for a new paint job.

[Marshall Art]

Winter 1941 - Allies are at 11 fighters before the battles over the Med, maybe we should increase cost to 4 [&:]

Axis air forces fly attacks on the Allied fleet in the Med. Unprecedented air battles occur with almost even losses, leaving the fleet mostly intact. A projected 6 Axis and 8 Allied hits was expected though. Meanwhile people in Rome are wondering how Mussolini wants to create an African Empire without even being able to send a ship down there...

US Congress reconsidered their position regarding China and imposed an embargo on Japan. Probability went down to 20%. To appease the US Japan only targeted rail and resources this turn... [;)]

[MrQuiet]

Allies Winter41

Britt Carriers Practice Scrambling CAGs and fly them off into the Baltic for more training.
Lackluster results but the pilots did survive.
No exp gains to show for it though [:(]

Aliies were gentle on the Neutral Nations this season but stern warnings were issued and we have a strong eye on Axis leaning Portugal. Axis have been noted as trying to gain trade relations with Norway. Hopefully Norway can see what a bad idea that would be.

Bulgarian resources damaged.
Greek Rail destroyed.

Russia notes very strong Germany presence on its boarders, barb could strike any time. Are we ready???

[Marshall Art]

Spring 1941 - Continued air battles over the Med with little results. Norway continues to resist our diplomatic approaches... Allied frozen zone movement allownace shows its effect, the Soviet regions in the West are heavily defended. A little more time to prepare against that is needed...

Japan tried to train CAG pilots. They do not show much progress though. Bomber pilots torch a factory which lifts the US chance of a second embargo to 40%. Note that destroying resources appears to not bother the US senate...

[MrQuiet]

Allies Spring41

Germans have graciously allowed SU another turn to build and research.

A major air attack was given the 'go ahead' to strike the ports in Southern Italy.
I dont recall reading anywhere that max air range penaly would be assigned to a 1mp air unit for flying off a island to a mainland.
My 1mp fighters were penalized max air range for flying from Malta to S.Italy. I thought that only applied to straits.
More Learning aquired.

The results of the battle were good enough to call it a success. (axis7-7 fighters vs allies 5-6)
Italians fighters will never return (destroyed/ can not build more).
Italy is going to become a burden on Germany soon enough.

2 Heavy fleets were put out of action and a Light Fleet completely destroyed.
All of this at a cost of 2 damaged fighter squadrans. (one in air2air/ one via bombardev1)
2 of my CAGs finaly gained a star of exp

Things are starting to shape up for the big WAR and we look foward to USA going FM2.
Several new US factorys have completed construction in loom of the coming events.[;)]

Allies say 'bring it on'

[Marshall Art]

Summer 1941, repaired aircraft are sent down to Italy again to see how the damaged BBs can be avenged.

Somehow the US resource gift to Japan got cancelled, without a message and not by 2 points but down to 0. Not sure why as there was no event message at all, and I did not move units into Indochina. I thought the gift would continue after Spring 1941? [&:]

Since there is no need for continued cautious approach in China another factory was torched. CAG pilots finally were able to damage rail, after numerous attempts. Not worth a medal though...

[MrQuiet]

Allies Summer 41

Central Med is evacuated due to overwhelming Axis Air within Range of my frail fleet.
At least most of the air can not reach SU in the event they might want to do that this season.

Elite German Sub Fleet position deep in South Atlantic has had his position givin away by spies of a undisclosed source.
Lets just say that Sub Fleet is no longer Elite and any threat posed by them has been removed for at least the time being.

Rus continues to build and tec.

[Marshall Art]

Fall 1941 - The WA have pulled back the fleet but left the air forces on Malta, so an all out attack was ordered to reduce WA air strengh prior to the diversion of Axis air power between East and West/South. Stalin asks his generals - what does he mean? [;)]

8 Fighters (7/7) (3 at max. range) and 1 CAG (4/5) attack 7 WA Fighters (6/6) and 3 CAG (5/5) - all 3 vets. TBs and HBs join the airfield bombing against 1 TB and 1 HB. quite some air action. Odds calculator showed a favourable 12 WA losses vs. 6 Axis losses including AA fire by 2 AAs on Malta.

The result was even better: 15 WA PPs lost against 7 Axis ones. Two TBs also earned medals. As all fighters were eliminated from Malta the Italian Fleet left port and took position in the central Med to attack the lone sub there but 2 DDs could not roll a 5 or 6. Despite only 1 BB and 2 DDs being there with air cover hopefully supply of Malta can be prevented and the single CAG and HB remaining on Malta taken out next turn to free up transport movement in the central Med. What will it be good for? We shall see then... [8D]

The Italian sub plowed into the Atlantic and damaged a trannie making some people in the USA angry [:'(]

With the resource gift gone Japan is free to go into China and does so in Changsa. No medals for the Japanese but the single CHN Infantry that escapes the inferno becomes veteran due to hitting an arty [:@]

With a TB being the only other hit still a good result for Japan. As the last remaining factory was torched by HBs China is left with no factory operational.

[MrQuiet]

Allies Fall41

8 Fighters (7/7) (3 at max. range) and 1 CAG (4/5) attack 7 WA Fighters (6/6) and 3 CAG (5/5) - all 3 vets. TBs and HBs join the airfield bombing against 1 TB and 1 HB. quite some air action. Odds calculator showed a favourable 12 WA losses vs. 6 Axis losses including AA fire by 2 AAs on Malta.

The result was even better: 15 WA PPs lost against 7 Axis ones. Two TBs also earned medals. As all fighters were eliminated from Malta the Italian Fleet left port and took position in the central Med to attack the lone sub there but 2 DDs could not roll a 5 or 6. Despite only 1 BB and 2 DDs being there with air cover hopefully supply of Malta can be prevented and the single CAG and HB remaining on Malta taken out next turn to free up transport movement in the central Med. What will it be good for? We shall see then...

Ouch! Indeed.
One other thing, axis managed 3 or 4 auto hits (causing destroyed units) to the Allies 0 auto hits [:(]
We did finally get a auto hit later in a HB attack vs resource causing double damage[:D]

The Cental Med Naval battle described above with surface fleets vs my subs did not show up in the playback.
Is this a new playback bug?

On to my turn.
My first order of business was to destroy the Italian Sub that broke out into the Atlantic near Gib.
Axis now sit on a total of Zero Sub fleets.

Second I risked it all in a Huge Naval battle in the Central Med ordering 7Heavy Fleets to engage the remains of the Italian Navy consisting of 1HF and 2LFs. The risky part was that the Italians had very heavy Air Cover from the German Tacs and fighters while I was going in naked.

One of my Heavy Fleets was targeted by 3 different tacs and was destroyed (new patch will negate that issue)
On the Naval Battle I got lucky and it was a range3 battle meaning his LFs could not participate and there were no torpedoes involved. Andrea Dora rests on the bottom.

The Screen Shot looks a little 2 busy but the right side shows my first attack and the left inset shows my Surviving Cag from the Malta airfield attack on the previous turn mounting up on a Carrier and sortie into Adriatic to damage a running LF. I almost lost my CAG since axis LF got another dam auto-hit on his flack attack vs CAG causing 14 suppression points.

Malta air fleets have been reinforced and my subs take refuge in the harbor.
Next turn is Winter42. Will Barb start in the cold??

[Marshall Art]

Axis Winter 1942 - After the heavy fighting in the Med Axis Air forces are withdrawn to regroup. As our Western possessions unfortunately are subject to WA bomb raids we had to move them to safer areas like Prussia, Romania...

Not sure if the diversion of TBs would in every case be better for the defending fleet, as it also gives the attacking air groups to score against more fleets, but here indeed the sunken WA HF would have otherwise been only damaged.

Japan moves into Lanchow I believe it's called and wonders how the USA can impose an embargo after they already had cancelled any trade with Japan earlier, must have something to do with the bug.

Screen shot shows allocation of Red Army/Airforce after 1941 builds. SOO many units everwhere, can we get a foot in there?? Axis troops will be shown in the next report, too much information for one 200 kB pic.

[MrQuiet]

Allies Winter42

SU builds and researches.
Our troop counts are very close to Germans.
Our tec is only a little behind.
Soviets are confident about there position but 3 transport Fleets in Romaina have some eyebrows raised.

Chineese prepare to die.

USA kicks production up another notch.
The Britts land in Albania to the relief of the suffering Albanians.
Brittish Carrier launches training mission into the Sothern tip of the 'boot' and destroys a transport fleet tied to its loading docks.

A major air raid of 4 Britt/Canadian Heavy Bomber Fleets fly unmolested into Austria to damage destroy shiny new HBs and Stukas sitting outside there factorys only to roll the most rediculously low dice possible. Other units miss there targets completely due to max air range penalty. All in all a waste of supply with only a damaged stuka to show for our troubles.

[Marshall Art]

Spring 1942 - No idea how range 4 HBs can reach Austria from England if Axis fighters are present in W. Germany. [&:] great luck that only one TB was hit.

Operation Barbarossa was launched, with WA troops in Albania some reinforcements had to be diverted to deal with the remaining infantry after the counterattack was only partially successful.

[Marshall Art]

Back to Russia, after the Russian deployments were shown last turn, here are the Axis forces also. Note Russia built a few Militia in Belorussia during the winter for a total of 12. The plan was to strike into Kiev, and then if possible surround and destroy the E. Poland group. 9 Tanks were ready to attack 12 Militia and 3 Artys in Belorussia, with a probability of about 50% for success.

[Marshall Art]

After the initial strike into Kiev went extremely well all Russian Air over Kiev and E. Poland was destroyed without any Axis losses. The desaster struck the tanks rolling on to Belorussia. Very good AT fire by the Artys and autohits made Minsk a tank graveyard. General staff blamed missing air support to suppress the Artys as main cause. The attack on Poland left the 2 Russian T-34's unharmed while another PzIV was hit by an autohit. Left with 5 tanks Germany is outnumbered 5:9. One turn after the attack Germany finds itself pretty much on the defensive.

On to the Far East - Japan is preparing for - who knows [8D]

[MrQuiet]

ORIGINAL: Marshall Art

Spring 1942 - No idea how range 4 HBs can reach Austria from England if Axis fighters are present in W. Germany. [&:] great luck that only one TB was hit.

Operation Barbarossa was launched, with WA troops in Albania some reinforcements had to be diverted to deal with the remaining infantry after the counterattack was only partially successful.

The replay shows only the direct as the crow flys route.
The bombers actually flew over Southern France then N Italy then to Austria. (that 0mp narrows rule makes it possible)
At any rate it was a waste of supply.

But this turn Spring 42 was worse.
See SS

[Marshall Art]

I almost forgot about the narrows rule.

Summer 1942 - robbed of most of its tanks the Wehrmacht takes a sunbath while the Luftwaffe targets factories and Russian airfields with good results.
Japan takes a gamble and waits another turn (at 32-38 WR, with very bad luck US could enter this turn)

[MrQuiet]

Allies Summer 42

Lots of German Aircraft struck in Russian territory with flak appropriately deployed.
The consensus is that our gunners are still green and need more trigger time.
Not one axis aircraft was lost to SU flak (i.e. not one time did he roll bombard ev1)
We have decided more training is the better solution than shooting the current gunners [:)]

For many years now us Soviets have been unhappy with our Neighbor Finland.
In a effort to get them to stop supplying Jerry we have invaded.
Not all went according to plan.
There is a new rule that I completely forgot about.
Neutrals are given free mil equal to there pop. oooops botched up that attack (95% chance of success acording to odds calc) one of my infantry was hit by auto-hit [:@]
See Screen Shot
Tried it again, this time with a CAM bonus bringing in air and armor (can you say spending to much precious supply on this venture?) And dam-it my armor is damaged. Mission was expensive (dont forget the 5 supply to attack a neutral) but finally successfull.

Turkey and Columbia went pro axis, thats not good.
WA trained on resource bombing missions, all successes but not one star has been givin to WA HBs this entire game.[:(]
So we cranked WA HB Land Attack to 6[;)]

[Marshall Art]

Fall 1942 - Now that the world has seen how bad the Communists are we hope to see more nations join the Axis - Sweden and Turkey are welcomed, their supplies and resources, too..

Pearl Harbour is burning despite heavy fighter cover. It did cost 1 damaged and one killed CAG though. Glad CAG's were at EV7 or is would have been a desaster. Japan expands its resource base.

IMO the possibility to move around Allied troops gives the Allies a completely new option and the Axis a hard time as surprise is only gained in one single battle. Perhaps thinking of having surprise for the entire Japanese turn would bring the game back into balance? Of course the Axis powers both could have attacked earlier but still the US have time to move onough units around to reinforce the likely targets. Same for Germany, as it is rather unrealistic that only in one region the defenders can be surprised.