As an aside, I'm thinking the war might be swinging too far in my favour right now (although the Germans are still not doing too great on the Western Front and are basically losing the fight in the North Sea) so I might declare war on Spain, the US, and Romania to even things up a bit if things keep going this way. Maybe Denmark too because I've always wanted to try a strategy of occupying Iceland and Greenland.
With the armies of the Central Powers victorious on most fronts, and the recent blitzkrieg through Greece and Ukraine, the leadership of the Central Powers became hubristic. An aggressive submarine campaign was unleashed in the North Atlantic that resulted in the sinking both of the RMS Lusitania and - astoundingly - of the Spanish Royal Yacht! The result was war with both an old European power, Spain, and the new power of the United States!
Greece, April 1916 - The Greeks have been reduced to a collection of isolated garrisons surrounded and besieged by the Central Powers. Salonika has already fallen. Maybe there is help coming from the Americans, but it will not arrive in time for the Greeks.
Italy, April 1916 - desperate for reinforcement, the Italians handed over key sectors of their front to recently-arrived Portuguese troops. This turned out to be an unwise decision - the Portuguese detachments that guarded Venice and Padua were poorly armed and badly motivated, and crumbled at the first blow from the forces of Kaiser Franz-Josef. Now the men of the Kaiserlich-Königliche Landwehr parade in the Piazza San Marco, with sullen gondoliers looking on at their new occupiers.
Withdrawing further into Italy, the Italian troops ask at every turn - where are the Americans?
General situation, May 1916 - The Tsar has been toppled and replaced with Kerensky's republican regime. Meanwhile Finland has broken away. The western Entente members are thus now spared the embarrassment of having to support the Tsar's autocracy, and Russian morale is temporarily boosted - maybe there is still life in the Russian bear?
Romania, July 1916 - With the slight revival of fortunes of Russia under Kerensky, the Kingdom of Romania takes the opportunity to intervene in the war. The Romanians are poorly armed and need soon need Russian support, which is sent in the form of three infantry corps. Pitesti falls to a strong Austro-Hungarian counterattack and K.u.K forces reach the gates of Bucharest.
January 1917, General situation - The German collapse on the western front, having reach Lille, Epinal, and Nancy in their initial advance, continues, with the Germans be forced back to Liege and almost out of France altogether. In Romania Bucharest has fallen and the rail connection via the Black Sea coast to Russia has been cut. Greece has surrendered after a prelonged, and pointless resistance in the Peloponnese after the fall of Athens. The British are defeated in Palestine but have advanced in Mesopotamia to link up with the Russians coming out of the Caucasus.
Italy, April, 1917 - With the Peace of Brest-Litovsk now signed forces are freed up for an offensive in the west. The German collapse on the Western Front is continuing with the fall of Liege to a British-American force (the first appearance of the Americans in land combat) however I do not intend to reinforce them there as I trust that the vast forces now freed up to them should be sufficient to hold that line.
Instead I am reinforcing my forces in Italy and conducting an amphibious attack across the Adriatic simultaneously with a renewed offensive in Northern Italy where Verona and Brescia have fallen in recent months. At the same time an army has deployed to Syria in order to force the British out of Mesopotamia and potentially invade Persia.
Italy, July 1917 - My landing on the heel of the Italian boot has gone less well than expected. An early advanced aimed at capturing Taranto was repulsed by the sudden arrival of substantial Entente reinforcements, who counter-attacked and destroyed an Austro-Hungarian corps. My forces are now hemmed in in the port of Brindisi.
Italy, July 1917 (part 2) - However the landing in the south appears to have caused a weakening in the Italian defences in northern Italy which I am now exploiting to the utmost. My goal is to finally break through to the Ligurian Sea, severing the main part of Italy off from the rest of the Entente and trapping the British and French reinforcements that have come on to this front there. I am also considering a landing in Sicily just to further complicate things.
Incidentally, this play-through I think highlights just haw much more difficult things are for the CP when Spain is brought into the Entente, out of proportion to the size of the Spanish army - every time you think you've got a breakthrough, Spanish troops turn up to slow things down again.
Italy, August 1917 - Austro-Hungarian forces advance out of their beachhead in Brindisi and capture Taranto, as the Central Powers continue to beat on the Entente defences in Northern Italy (ominously now reinforced by the Americans). Italian morale is now at 2% - how much longer can they hold?
The Austro-Hungarian-lead offensives in Northern and Southern Italy forced the Italians to surrender. The Italian collapse then lead to the smashing of multiple French, British, Spanish and American units in Italy as their former allies deserted around them. K.u.K forces were rapidly rushed across the Mediterranean to Tripoli to ensure the French did not try to occupy Libya after the Italian surrender to local rebels there - but they need not have worried. The impact of the Italian surrender and the destruction of large French formations in Italy forced the French - who at this point had driven the Germans almost entirely from their soil - to throw in the towel.
Victory to the Central Powers! An Empire of "Mittel Europa" will be established under the German and Austro-Hungarian flags!
And here's the casualty lists - the Germans suffered a great deal of casualties. Excessive German aggressiveness, coupled with what looks like a tendency to abandon the Western Front a bit when the Eastern Front starts to expand, seems to have been the cause of this.
With the exception of a corps lost in the invasion of Southern Italy, I only lost land formations in the first turn and the last where desperate Entente counterattacks met exhausted K.u.K troops. In fact the last turn was probably the most bloody of the whole war for me.
The naval war (which I realise I didn't give much coverage of) consisted largely of sniping Italian and French naval vessels in the Adriatic and sneaking back to port, I lost all of my pre-dreadnought in this eventually but the result was a clear victory for the Central Powers.
Finally, the situation map. As you can see, substantial forces were waiting in the US for the crossing to Europe - had the war carried on into 1918 these would have made an appearance.
In Mesopotamia my forces had Baghdad surrounded, though I never got around to invading Persia. The Ottomans were in the process of invading Egypt - in every game I've played of SC:WW1 so far the British lose the war in Palestine.
The biggest surprise for me was watching the Germans get beaten on the Western Front after taking Lille, Verdun, Epinal, and Nancy. I doubt the French would have surrendered until well into 1918 if not for the morale hit they took from these losses - but they got no morale-boost from retaking them.
ORIGINAL: FOARP Incidentally, this play-through I think highlights just haw much more difficult things are for the CP when Spain is brought into the Entente, out of proportion to the size of the Spanish army - every time you think you've got a breakthrough, Spanish troops turn up to slow things down again.
Besides Spanish units, Spain joins Entente will also bring up an economic benefit: Spain will become a Minor of France and provide France with about 200+ MPPs per turn. If France morale is still high this can cause problems to CP.
< Message edited by eightroomofelixir -- 4/11/2020 5:54:15 PM >
ORIGINAL: FOARP Incidentally, this play-through I think highlights just haw much more difficult things are for the CP when Spain is brought into the Entente, out of proportion to the size of the Spanish army - every time you think you've got a breakthrough, Spanish troops turn up to slow things down again.
Besides Spanish units, Spain joins Entente will also bring up an economic benefit: Spain will become a Minor of France and provide France with about 200+ MPPs per turn. If France morale is still high this can cause problems to CP.
That does make me think Spain should be a major! (Or much less productive... historically, Spain in this period scarcely had huge economic might....)
ORIGINAL: FOARP Incidentally, this play-through I think highlights just haw much more difficult things are for the CP when Spain is brought into the Entente, out of proportion to the size of the Spanish army - every time you think you've got a breakthrough, Spanish troops turn up to slow things down again.
Besides Spanish units, Spain joins Entente will also bring up an economic benefit: Spain will become a Minor of France and provide France with about 200+ MPPs per turn. If France morale is still high this can cause problems to CP.
That does make me think Spain should be a major! (Or much less productive... historically, Spain in this period scarcely had huge economic might....)
I've been thinking Spain would be good to have as a major, but you have to define a faction, and Spain was pretty much split down the middle as to whether it supported the CP or Entente. The 200 MPPs does rather explain why the French were able to recover so strongly after I declared war on Spain - but I'm wondering if actually that led to France losing more quickly due to higher unit losses from having more units in the field?
Printable Version
All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> Strategic Command Series >> Strategic Command: World War I >> AAR >> RE: AustriAAR: An Austria-Hungary-only AAR 
RE: AustriAAR: An Austria-Hungary-only AAR - 
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread