Redrum68 (Allies) vs Lascar (Axis) #2 - Lascar Welcome

[redrum68]

Lascar has offered to play mirror games now that we finished our first 2 games. We've agreed on the following house rules to address some of the issues we had in the first 2 games. Here are the rules:

1. UK limits its BEF ground commitment to France to no more than 8 total corps with up to 2 being armor/mech (HQs don't count).
2. Axis limited to only 2 surface ship groups for raiding convoy lanes.
3. Axis limits its ground commitment to Libya/Egypt area to no more than 8 total corps with up to 3 being armor/mech (HQs and Italian garrison units don't count). If the Allies invade Vichy North Africa then the there is no longer any limit.

Game on!

[ncc1701e]

ORIGINAL: redrum68

3. Axis limits its ground commitment to Libya/Egypt area to no more than 8 total corps with up to 3 being armor/mech (HQs and Italian garrison units don't count). If the Allies invade Vichy North Africa then the there is no longer any limit.

Just one question, did Lascar use the Royal Navy to attack supplies against your ports in Libya? Doing so is reducing a lot supplies for your army.

[redrum68]

Just one question, did Lascar use the Royal Navy to attack supplies against your ports in Libya? Doing so is reducing a lot supplies for your army.

A little bit but its hard to do against the entire German and Italian air forces sitting in Sicily and Libya. But even if he did it doesn't really matter since I believe you still get basic supply even if the port supply is attacked.

[redrum68]

Sept 1, 1939

So with the house rules, the plan is to max the BEF ground commitment to the 2 armor + 6 infantry corps and add in a few fighters to contest the skies. This will hopefully force a lot of German casualties to improve USSR's chance to survive.

Pretty standard German opening in Poland:

[redrum68]

Sept 15, 1939

Poland and Denmark surrender with the standard German attacks.

[redrum68]

Sept 29, 1939

Here are the casualties after the Poland and Denmark campaigns which is about average from what I've seen in other games. Not a great start to the BoA as Allies have lost 6 MM and 1 escort already and I don't plan to invest much into BoA until after France falls.

[redrum68]

Apr 26, 1940

Let's fast forward to the start of the battle of France!

The Allies decide to invade Luxembourg to improve their defensive positions and they immediately surrender. Barring bad weather, we expect the Germans to start the invasion next turn. The British have 6 infantry + 1 armor corps in position and just waiting for the final armor corps to be built. We also have 1 extra British fighter with 2 more being completed shortly.

The plan is to avoid Belgium falling turn 1 so the Germans have to grind through it or attack the Netherlands.

[redrum68]

Apr 26, 1940 - Casualties

Here are the casualties before the battle of France and the BoA has gone better than expected after the rough start.

[redrum68]

May 10, 1940

The Germans capture Luxembourg and begin pushing into Belgium but don't declare war on the Netherlands. This is good news as it will allow the Allies to set up a proper defense of Belgium. The weak Belgium corps are pulled back to France and replaced with British/French corps. Another British fighter is completed raising our Allied fighter force to 8. The Allies brace for impact...

[redrum68]

May 24, 1940

The Germans seeing the defense of Belgium realize their mistake and declare war on the Netherlands but were not in position to capture it in 1 turn. This compounds their challenges as now the Allies can also look to contest Amsterdam and the river lines south of it. Dutch units are moved back to France to free up space for the Allies to move in. Amsterdam will probably fall but make the Germans waste lots of attacks.

Lascar asks to further limit BEF commitment to France given the rough start and its agreed to limit commitment to only 5 instead of 8 corps so the others are railed to French ports to depart for spring break!

[redrum68]

June 7, 1940

Amsterdam falls after a massive bombing and attack by the Germans. Unfortunately the Allies make a miscalculation and a few units retreat north of Amsterdam and are now doomed. But Belgium defenses are still looking strong and there are a lot of tired German units already. The second British armor corps arrives as the Allies look for an opportunity to counter attack near Brussels with the 2 French + 2 British armor corps.

[redrum68]

June 21, 1940 - Axis Surrender!

The Axis after a few attacks and mounting casualties no longer see a way to capture Paris in 1940 and decide to surrender while they can still get favorable terms. Its a bit earlier than I expected but understand looking at that wall of Allied units and not wanting to continue on. The French had finally gotten their infantry techs this turn and upgraded all their units which can be seen in the increased strength values.

The final British forces supporting France are:
- 2 armor corps
- 2 infantry corps (with another 4-5 in the UK that could have been sent to France without the house rules)
- 6 fighters
- 3 tact bombers

The Belgians still have a handful of infantry corps as well which are surprisingly almost as good as the French.

Overall thoughts:
- The big issue this game was taking Luxembourg and the Germans not being prepared to shift their invasion through the Netherlands. This is really unhistorical and I think should be changed to have much more severe penalty for the Allies invading it.
- Belgium should probably be weakened and that combined with severe penalties for the Allies invading Luxembourg should allow for a 1 turn surrender of Belgium consistently.
- The BEF commitment was significant though not as strong as last game. The extra fighters were starting to cause higher German air casualties so not a bad investment though I still think ground units are the most efficient investment.
- The WDF really should be frozen in Egypt or not added til later to avoid in ending up in France.

Comments and questions welcome!

[stjeand]

Some of my thoughts...

1) Axis should never use air in Poland. Maybe just me...all they do is lose air and have to rebuild. Leaving the Polish air changes nothing overall.
2) I hate the Allies being allowed to attack Luxemburg...but if they do the Germans have to switch to hit Netherlands first then Belgium. Could be in the same turn if they are confident of that. Both should surrender in a turn at most. Belgium is not to strong...it is easy just need practice. SADLY you can not use the 1940 scenario to practice because the units are moved. NO idea why that is the case but they are. So my suggestion...Hotseat 1939 only play the Axis until you get to the invasion and save the game. Then you can play the attacks over and over practicing. BE very light on air use in those two places...you need all your air to be at 100% to hit France.
3) Another very unrealistic and issue I see if the French fleet...they are basically a free suicidal unit that the Allies just use as mobile artillery. They make the Netherlands twice as difficult to take and can cause issues on the coast in Belgium. As the Allies I don't use this as I find it an exploit due to the fleet being able to be sunk and then returning fully repaired. Air attacks against it are just free damage for the Allies so try not too. I think they should be stuck in the Med, personally.

Takes a lot of practice to take out the Netherlands and Belgium in one turn...

[stjeand]

FYI 8 corps is still alot...
The actual BEF was 3 / 4 infantry corps and an HQ and that was all.

[ncc1701e]

ORIGINAL: redrum68

Overall thoughts:
- The big issue this game was taking Luxembourg and the Germans not being prepared to shift their invasion through the Netherlands. This is really unhistorical and I think should be changed to have much more severe penalty for the Allies invading it.

I can't find a realistic penalty to prevent this. Do you have an idea?

For the big BEF, UK has four free infantry large corps at a strength of 5/30 at start. Reducing them to small corps or to division size is a first idea.

Second idea is to reduce the strength of their air superiority and bomber units to something like 10/20.

This way this is more PP to spend on defense more than on offense.

[stjeand]

My thoughts were more that the UK must garrison their big ports with certain strength of units...if not they lose PP as people refuse to work due to fear.
Places like London, Southhampton, Liverpool...

As for Luxemburg...
I say if it is invaded Belgium joins the Axis due to fear of the aggressive West.
OR they move their defensive units from the Netherlands border to the French fearing attack. That would make Belgium fall more easily. No Allied players wants that.
This would allow the Axis to attack the Netherlands and go straight down to the Belgium capital without much of a fight...

This would require a few events...if Lux surrenders to Allies then remove units in hexes X and Y and place them in hexes A and B...
Something like that.

Although not realistic neither is the Allies invading Luxemburg.

I am sure many will say well the penalty is that Belgium does not join the Netherlands...

Air is now a bigger deal...the Allies can build quite a few fighters and just contest the air.
In my game with svient the Allies focused everything on their fighters...I believe there were 4 UK and 3 French...against 6 German...

The Germans lost 220 air...the PP replacement is over 2000PP to replace...that is 4 months of full PP...which cost the war.
Could not build any armor for Russia...
Weirdly I focused my supply trucks on my air...did not help. He said he never used any so not sure how his air won more often than not.
I do know I was not focused on air repair as I believe he was...I was trying to keep my army moving...which requires repairs too...
Will have to see if anything can be done to get around this other than just not using air and taking longer.

[michaelCLARADY]

Upon seeing that Luxembourg was taken by France, the Axis Player should have postponed declaring war on Belgium for one turn while the Lux were liberated. This gives an actually improved position for a quick one turn take down of Belgium. After that the almost uniformly immobile French Army just gets in the way of that high end UK Army coming forward to engage until the French have been slaughtered and the Germans have chosen their ground for the Brit showdown. With just a bit of luck the nice shiny Brit machine is trashed and perhaps even partially trapped when France goes down. Also after spending everything on the Army the Brits find the BOA going against them in a water blitz IF the Germans have built a decent sub force.

[stjeand]

As well they can attack the Netherlands without Belgium joining...

BUT in both cases...it is not trivial to destroy a full French corp across a river.
Could be costly.

[sveint]

I don't think we can draw too many conclusions from a game where Germany fails to take Belgium.

[ncc1701e]

Well, yes and no. Allies have 6 UK air superiority units plus 3 French air superiority units and 3 UK + 1 French Tactical bombers.
That's a lot of air power against Germany.