Another Solo Global AAR

[markb50k]

Nov/Dec 1940

East Africa at end of turn
Here we see what may be a dumb move on my part as the French player. France pulled the TERR out of Fr. Somaliland, and allowed Italy to conquer it. I didn't realize that the French territorial would disappear but it did.

But the plan is, and if someone could confirm or deny this, I plan on bringing in some reinforcements to this area and will try to liberate it with CW forces. If I do, will that allow CW and France to cooperate if CW returns the country to France?

While we are on the subject of France, I'll update you on what France is doing this turn. France was incompletely conquered last turn and as a result, they are now free to start maneuvering and doing things with their navy now that the threat of Vichy has passed.

The French fleet is massing in two areas: Dakar, Senegal to support an Allied counterattack in Africa, and Trincomalee to assist in holding off the Japanese should the need arise. French ships in New Caledonia, and the Indian Ocean set sail for Ceylon.

The French TRS picks up the 4-2 Senegal TERR, and starts moving it towards India. Likely it will be used to assist the Allies in East Africa.

Also, the French CVP stranded in Equatorial Africa begins rebasing to get to Senegal, where it can hopefully be put in the reserve and give the French a pilot.

Of course, if we never are able to give build points to France, many of these plans mean nothing.

[markb50k]

Nov/Dec 1940

India at end of turn
CW has quite a number of units in India and they are all moving East in preparation for action against Japan next year.

[markb50k]

Nov/Dec 1940

Losses
The winter has slowed down some of the Axis successes.

NOTE: The BB Paris was destroyed when France was conquered. It was in the construction pool.

[markb50k]

Nov/Dec 1940

US Entry

A "2" is pulled into the Japanese pool.

US chooses "Lend Lease to Western Allies". moves a "1" to Tension.
US chooses "Oil Embargo". Japan just lost 4 resources, ouch. moves a "1" to Tension.

US has enough tension to call War Appropriations next turn with any luck in getting a good entry chit.

At this point, the Japanese are seriously considering DOW'ing the CW and NEI.

[markb50k]

Jan/Feb 1941

1st Impulse
This turn starts with the Allies winning initiative and deciding to go first.

CW and France call a naval.
- CW TRS picks up 3-5 ARM DIV moved to Gibraltar to shore up defense.
- CW TRS picks up 3-1 Canadian GARR moved to CSV. will debark next impulse.
- CW CV fleet moved to 4 box Cape St Vincent. Decided not to go into West Med due to possible loss of Gibraltar this turn.
- CW moves Beaufort and Vildebeest to West Med
- CW moves SUBs to West Med
- CW also start resetting their convoy paths. They have plenty of CPs, and begin moving them out of Bay of Biscay and even North Atlantic
- CW transports the 3-3 Seville MIL to UK waters. Will debark next impulse.
- CW transports 2-2 N. Ireland TERR to UK waters. Will debark next impulse.
- CW transfers another Beaufighter in N.Africa
- for additional fighter coverage, a CW TRS picks up a newly arrived South African Hurricane II
- Queens TRS pick up South Rhodesia 3-3 TERR, and move to AUSTRALIA

France
- moves SUB to Italian Coast. no luck finding Italian convoys.
- move fleets out to Bay of Bengal and convoy protection in Cape St Vincent.

US
- finishes moving fleet to PH. I messed up a bit, moving cruisers, and didn't realize the rule for moving tension control needed BBs. Just about fixed it now by this point.

China
- due to the Rain weather, tries to form a line east of Chungking. A newly arrived 3-2 INF reinforcement is at Chungking

On the axis 1st impulse, Italy is preparing to declare war on Commonwealth, finally. But not this impulse. They call a Naval, and move the fleet out to the Western Med. With luck and some shore bombardment they will assist Germany in taking Gibraltar.

Italy also moves two more corps to sea in TRSs: A 4-3 Milan MIL and a 4-4 Yugoslavia MTN. These will debark next turn.
Germany declares a land impulse, and moves on Gibraltar. But, they don't get enough firepower there to attack yet, so that will also have to wait until next impulse.

Japan, hampered by bad weather in the North Temperate, is able to get 5:1 odds for a +10 attack on one of the Chinese units on the line, a 4-3 MIL unit. They roll a 14 which destroys the defending unit. Weather prevents them from advancing into the defending hex.

Here is the pic of the situation in China before their attack.

Japan,

[markb50k]

Jan/Feb 1941

Gibraltar falls
On the next Allied impulse, CW calls a land impulse.

With Gibraltar under siege, the CW attempts to ground strike the one hex the Germans can attack from. Success in that can perhaps give more time for the defenders. The CW sends the Harrow ATR and the DB7 tactical bomber, escorted by one of their Beaufighters and the Gladiator CVP on station offshore.

The Germans intercept with two 6pt fighters: The He100 and Bf109.

The result is the Harrow shot down and the DB7 clears through. Unfortunately it misses all three German units.

In other moves:
- CW debarks the 3-3 Seville to the UK
- CW debarks the 2-2 N. Ireland TERR to the UK
- CW debarks the 3-1 Canadian GARR to North Africa
- Alexander HQ reorg's the Beaufighter for use later in the turn.
- CW starts moving some of their troops eastward to form a line in front of the Italians, who are now into Fr. Morocco.

On the next Axis impulse, Italy FINALLY declares war on the Commonwealth. As a result a "2" is added to the GE/IT pool. Italian fighters ground strike Gibraltar and end up disorganizing all three defending units!

Gort provides HQ support, and with Italian shore bombardment the Germans make their attack. It results in the Germans all disorganized and the CW 3-2 Cape Town MIL destroyed.

With war now on between Italy and CW, Italy send their Italian Somaliland TERR into Kenya towards Nairobi.

At the end of the turn, Von Bock reorgs the three units so they can try again next turn.

ALLIES 3RD IMPULSE
The CW attempts to reinforce Gibraltar but unfortunately no unit can reach Gibraltar across the straits, and both CW HQ's are disorganized, so the Gibraltar defenders will have to survive another attack.

Here is the situation just before the 2nd German attack on their 3rd impulse. At this point, the results call for 1 destroyed defender and 1 shattered. The CW elects to shatter the Spanish 6-5 MECH, but at either rate, Gibraltar falls and Germany marches in. With that event, a "4" is added to the GE/IT US Entry pool.

[markb50k]

Jan/Feb 1941

On the 4th Allied impulse, they all elect to pass, and the turn ends.

Losses

Here are the losses and I will show a quick shot of all the major theaters next post.

[markb50k]

Jan/Feb 1941

Gibraltar at end of turn
With the fall of Gibraltar, the allies are attempting to RTB all their ships, and they are forced to keep their carrier fleet at sea since they didn't have the range to return to the UK, and their aren't enough ports available to hold the whole fleet.

[markb50k]

Jan/Feb 1941

Eastern Front at end of turn
More units including some German HQ's are pouring back to the common border. Germany is still not sure what they want to do with the USSR, but won't have to decide until they at least can break the pact.

[markb50k]

Jan/Feb 1941

Northern China at end of turn
Things have stayed quiet on this front, but the Japanese are probing for weakness on the Communist Chinese line.

[markb50k]

Jan/Feb 1941

Southern China at end of turn
The Nationalists are getting their rear ends handed to them, plain and simple, but the Japanese realize that to take the last Chinese resources around Chungking is going to be a problem with no rail lines nearby.

So Japan is turning its attention southward. Along the southern coast of China, Japan now has 6 army DIVs, 2 MAR corps, and 1 MAR DIV. In addition, as I will show on the next post, they moved two GARR corps to Truk in preparation for an assault on Rabaul.

When will it come? Japan will look to act the first opportunity of good weather, so as early as next turn. Especially if the US is able to get War Appropriations passed, which as we will see, they do.

[markb50k]

Jan/Feb 1941

Bismarck Sea at end of turn
Japan uses a combined at the end of the turn to move a 5-1 GARR and 4-1 GARR to Truk. One of these GARR will move to Rabaul upon DOW on CW.

[markb50k]

Jan/Feb 1941

US Entry
US pulls a "4" into the Japanese pool. Combined with the chits added in Europe from Gibraltar and the DOW by Italy, the US easily has enough entry to pick War Appropriations, and it does. As a result a "2" is added to the tension pool, and immediately the US has gained a 40% chance on DOW on all of the Axis powers.

With the news of the increased production multiple of .75 for the US, Japan is feeling the pressure mount on it to do something before the Allies declare war on Japan.

If weather cooperates, a state of war between the Japanese Empire and the Allies will begin in March of 1941. Such a turnaround from a few turns ago, when it seemed the US were well behind in Entry.

Things are about to get interesting...

[markb50k]

We are very close to actually catching up where I am in the game. Just a couple of impulses, further...

Afterwards, I will try to post as much of each battle as possible. I'm still in summary mode...

Mar/Apr 1941

Japan goes to full war this turn
Allies win the initiative roll and elect to go first.

At this point, the US has to decide whether to attempt to DOW on any of the Axis powers. The US has a 40% chance of doing so, and the earlier the better. It is also obvious that Japan is preparing for something, so taking the surprise away from her is tempting. But 40% is just too risky, so the US does not declare at this time. Neat thing is that they can declare war at any DOW phase, so they don't necessarily have to wait a full turn.

The CW declares a Naval and sends out the fleet to cover convoys. Honestly, the Axis hasn't really done much in the way of convoy raiding. A couple of French CPs were killed after Italy declared war, but Germany hasn't called a combined in over a year (I think the first turn). I cannot see where they could have done so, as they have been pretty busy in the land war. I think this will definitely come back to haunt the Axis, as the Commonwealth has an abundance of Convoys in reserve throughout the world and especially in North America. Also, the CW has almost shifted its entire convoy lines to the northern sea zones, with only 5 CPs in North Atlantic, and only 1 each in Bay of Biscay and Cape St Vincent.

The CW moves the new 5-3 PARA corps to Cape St Vincent for debarking next impulse, as well as the 2nd Spanish MIL unit up to the UK. The UK is resembling a mish mash of colors as aligned nation units are starting to collect there. If Germany had any designs on a Sea Lion, they will likely pass on that, due to the number of units in the UK.

As mentioned before the CW main carrier fleet is still patrolling Cape St Vincent and will likely return to base at the end of this turn.

The CVL Eagle sets sail in the Red Sea, to assist in any actions that the Allies want to take against Italy. Unless Italy builds a ton of territorials in that area, its only a matter of time before the Allies clean up Italian East Africa.

Italy also cannot really move against Egypt since Italy's army is now spread across North Africa and split facing CW units in Morocco and Egypt, and the CW has amassed large forces in either country.

France calls a naval and starts moving all her African fleets to the Indian Ocean. The CW navy doesn't seem to need the help at this point in convoy protection.

France moves its Senegal 4-2 TERR into the Red Sea and will land it in British Somaliland next impulse.

Finally the CW moves their Netherlands SUB unit into the Bismarck sea.

In China, Chiang arrives as a reinforcement, as well as a Communist GARR unit.

At the end of the Allies first impulse, here is the situation in China:

[markb50k]

Mar/Apr 1941

It's War!
On the first Axis impulse, with Fine weather everywhere important, Japan declares war on the US, CW, and France.

They call a super-combined using their O-chit, and put the entire fleet to sea.

Their targets for this turn are: Take Batavia, Manila, Rabaul, Singapore/Malaysia, and French Indo-china.

In addition to the Marine and DIV units, they use an AMPH unit to invade the Phillipines with a 3-1 GARR unit. They also move the 5-1 GARR to reinforce Rabaul after a division is tasked with taking the port.

With surprise rules, all of the unopposed invasions work flawlessly, but their is one attack against actual Allied units, in Batavia, where the NEI's 3-2 TERR is present. With ground support and bombardment support and hitting it with the Imperial Guard MAR unit, even that attack is successful.

In Malaysia, Singapore is taken but Kuala Lampur is still in Allied hands after the first impulse. Now Japan hopes that the Allies cannot land any reinforcements.

In other news, the Japanese army continues to assault the Chinese positions in the south AND north. They use all of their bombers to attempt groundstrikes, 2 on the Nationalist stack of a 4-2 and 2-2, and 3 on the 4-3 Communist unit in the middle of the Communists' line.

Both are successful, but in land battle the Communist unit is only forced to retreat at the cost of half disorganized. In the south, the Nationalist stack is wiped out.

In Europe, the Axis attempt some ground strikes against Gort, and some other CW units. The CW flies to intercept, including their newly arrived Hurricane II fighter, but it is shot down.

In the Pacific, the Netherlands and French SUBs are sunk attempting to intercept the Japanese fleets. They had to take the chance of possibly finding the transports but the surprise numbers allowed Japan to use Naval Air on them.

Here are the losses after the Japanese use their super-combined:

[markb50k]

Mar/Apr 1941

Allies 2nd Impulse
Weather turns bad: Blizzard in North Temperate, Snow in Med, Rain in North Monsoon.

After the US had been declared war on in the previous impulse, the US now has a 70% chance of DOW'ing Germany and Italy. They take that chance and are successful. The US is now fully at war and their production multiple is at 1.25.

US calls a Naval, and begins moving the fleet out to Pearl Harbor and starts moving a couple of DIVs to North Africa. With such an early entry, the US has not been producing many land and air units and has been concentrating on their ship gearing limits and saving BPs. Looks like they need to do some catching up.

The CW is still attempting to exert some control over the Med, as they can still reach the West Med with NAVs and long range fighters. Germany and Italy are attempting to intercept and protect the Italian convoys since the rail lines through Gibraltar are still blocked by CW units.

Here is the situation in the Med:

[markb50k]

Mar/Apr 1941

Allies 2nd Impulse
In Asia, The CW use the queens on a combined to sail from Australia to Bay of Bengal, pick up an Indian 2-4 TERR, and land it in Kuala Lampur. Hopefully that will slow down the Japanese invaders.

In other news, the US Aligns Brazil. It will align Mexico and Panama first chance it gets in the coming impulses.

Here is the situation in Malaya:

[markb50k]

Mar/Apr 1941

Axis 2nd Impulse
Japan lands their 5-1 GARR in Rabaul, and moves a unit into Manila and Hanoi.

In China, they can't move too much due to the bad weather, and no new attacks there.

Japan does lose a SUB outside of Honolulu when it attempts to attack a US convoy with escorts.

In Malaya, the Japanese invaders have reached the defending Indian TERR, but cannot attack due to terrible odds.

In Europe, Italy attempts to disrupt the CW fleet in Cape St Vincent but with great search rolls, the CW is able to sink two Italian SUBs. Ouch.

At this point, this AAR takes a pause. I honestly don't know what to do with Germany. Do I concentrate on putting troops into North Africa and push the large British force off the continent and maybe do 42 Barbarossa? Or do I finish building up the Eastern Front and do a 41 Barbarossa? German forces, especially air, are a bit out of position, with many still in Spain trying to move East. I guess I could always call an Air.

[markb50k]

Mar/Apr 1941

Allies 3rd Impulse: What should I do!?
My last save game places me right at the beginning of Impulse #11, the third Allied impulse.

I am presented with the following option, for DOW options for USSR.

I think I should DOW on Italy immediately, to allow USSR to do Land moves etc. What do you think? Are there any downsides to that, now that the US is in the war?

What about DOW on Japan. Japan is doing very well in China, and Russia has barely anybody in Vladivostok area. Although the Russians could make some trouble for Japan in Manchuria (Japan only has two Manchurian units there), the Japanese are very strong overall and could do a lot of trouble for them.

How about Persia? With the Germans rushing to the East, do I take this opportunity to hit Persia with the USSR?

I also plan on taking the Baltic states this impulse as well.

So, if you have any suggestions of where I take this game, especially what to do with Germany and Russia, I'm all ears!

Thanks for following the AAR to this point, hopefully some folks have!

[Centuur]

From the Axis point of view: You are doing remarkably well, which is also the reason why the US is now early in the war. I think your strategy with Germany should now become to close the Med in total. Go and take Suez and make sure the Mountains in Morocco are becoming a battleground for the Commonwealth. You should try to free the Italians from guarding there home turf.

The US is low on ground units. That's good. So try to kill the Nationalist Chinese first. They are collapsing and you should exploit that. Take out enemies one at a time

I estimate that you've got till early 1942 too consolidate your positions. I suggest a Sitzkrieg against the USSR at this moment.