DQ2004's AAR #2 - "Ouch. ...that hurt"

[DQ2004]

In the next round, the Allies get surprise. With few strike aircraft left and plenty of battleships, they use their points to choose a surface combat, and damage Scharnhorst and Prinz Eugen.

[DQ2004]

The British only have to face one 'destroyed' result, and choose to throw it at a battleship. Why? Well, its always a difficult choice. Do you lose a cruiser in one go or do you take a chance at a battleship which is more likely to end up damaged? I often choose the old British battleships as their speed makes them less useful vessels compared to cruisers which can get into the high boxes.
Anyway, perhaps thats wrong. Of course, if I'd been doing that more often then perhaps there would be more battleships and almost no cruisers left in the RN!
Regardless, I chose the Royal Oak. And with a 40% chance of sinking it, Scharnhorst's new 15 inch guns find their mark...

[DQ2004]

In the next round, everyone finds everyone, and there is a bit of an air battle...
I didn't take a screenshot of the next bit, but if I recall correctly the only significant thing was that Prinz Eugen, already damaged, was sunk.

[DQ2004]

In China, something of a sideshow these days, the Chinese have been slowly building up. With an out-of-supply unit vulnerable, they attack!
...once again, they roll badly.

[DQ2004]

In the next impulse there are yet more air battles over London. Once again the RAF loses out, although once again the bombers fail to hit any valuable targets.

[DQ2004]

In East Africa, the Italian Marines move to trap Alexander's force in Somaliland, landing at Mogadishu.

[DQ2004]

In Burma, Rangoon falls to Yamashita.

[DQ2004]

Manila falls also.

[DQ2004]

In Papua New Guinea, history is repeating itself. The Australian regulars arrive just in time to prevent the fall of Port Moresby.

[DQ2004]

Unfortunately for the Italian Marines, who've now taken three key ports in quick succession, their luck has run out. The covering Regia Marina force has failed to cut the British supply lines, and Alexander quickly moves to counterrattack.

[DQ2004]

It is a risky attack, but with some covering fire from the Duke of York (IIRC), it succeeds.

[DQ2004]

The British fleet also finds the Italian amphibious ships, after a mistake from the RM force left it on its own in the #4 box (whoops, forgot about that!!). Ouch, that hurt

[DQ2004]

But in the next naval battle things swing back to the Italians, and a force of cruisers cuts the Commonwealth supply lines off the coast of South Africa.

[IKerensky]

Some things I dislike in this niçe AAR:

You tried too hard for the allies not to out guess the Axis intention, the result was a moronic deployment and error that make no sense. The 1940 DOW shouldn't have happen, the excuse that the USSR were building for bessarabia then stuck there because of US entry dont hold water. If the US entry is bad and you know you won't attack you don't stay there. How could the not notice the amount of German troups that aren't in France ? How come Benelux fall that fast ? Frankly the allies minors set up were criminaly weaks.

You deploy in single unit than retreat while this flip you.

[DQ2004]

ORIGINAL: KERENSKY

Some things I dislike in this niçe AAR:

You tried too hard for the allies not to out guess the Axis intention, the result was a moronic deployment and error that make no sense. The 1940 DOW shouldn't have happen, the excuse that the USSR were building for bessarabia then stuck there because of US entry dont hold water. If the US entry is bad and you know you won't attack you don't stay there. How could the not notice the amount of German troups that aren't in France ? How come Benelux fall that fast ? Frankly the allies minors set up were criminaly weaks.

You deploy in single unit than retreat while this flip you.

Firstly, you obviously missed one of my earlier posts. This AAR is a 'what happened', I'm not going to explain why I did every single thing I did at each stage. I also never claimed to be a great player and I've definitely made mistakes. Sorry if that offends anyone.
Re the '40 Barbarossa, I'd seen a lot of people claiming the USSR should prepare for an attack on Rumania first, before moving to prevent the '41 declaration. Well thats what good it does them. They get hammered. But the reality was the attack on France went so well the Germans attacked early, before the Russians could redeploy, even though they knew what was happening. Because of US entry, they couldn't claim Bessarabia until Mar/Apr 40, therefore they couldn't deploy to Poland (because they knew that the Germans would refuse the claim if there was no force there).
The Soviet Army in 1940 is pitifully small. Where do you put it? Rumania or Poland? The Germans had a pretty small army in Poland too - I'm willing to bet a human opponent wouldn't have expected a DoW in Mar/Apr 40 either.

Re the Benelux setup, there is NO good defence of Belgium. There are 3 weak units. They get overrun in one or two impulses almost every time. I didn't put a screenshot of it up because at that time everyone's AAR had the attack on Belgium and I wanted to show something different. So sue me.

Re single units vs double stacks, double stacks aren't always the best defence - one double stack often means a hex for the enemy to move past, blocking retreat and a supply line. Then two units are ground-striked and OOS, easy meat (which has still happened to me a lot, I never said I was perfect).

Like I said before, solitaire games aren't always simple. I often have one turn and then leave the game for a bit before coming back for the other side. Dunno if that helps much but sometimes it seems to. The naval war in the pacific is extremely difficult to play solitaire in a fair way, I'm finding.

[DQ2004]

Right, back to it.
The Italians ground strike Bradley with their schmick Stukas. Why Bradley? Well, they didn't really know what to hit, they knew that US planes were on the way, and it seemed the best way to slow the US plan of moving around the mountain defence line.

[DQ2004]

In Leningrad, the Luftwaffe has brought up a huge force for the assault, and the SS move across the frozen lake to improve the attack odds, a very risky move.

[DQ2004]

At Perm, yet another critical factory/resource hex, the Germans launch another risky attack.

[DQ2004]

Leningrad finally falls, a lucky high roll. I think next game I'll throw an offensive chit at it.

[DQ2004]

Bahrain falls to Graziani's Libia mech.