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RufusTFirefly -> RE: European Theatres of Operations Game 2 (10/16/2010 9:44:50 AM)
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Nov 1940
Meanwhile the fighting in the west has come to an end. France and the Low Countries are completely occupied. Only the French colonies in Africa and Lebanon remained.
On the Balkan Germany is advancing slow but steadily. Maribor, Novi Sad and Belgrade have fallen (all centers you see in the two screenshots given above by 82ndTrooper). Only winter saved the southern parts of Yugoslavia so far from being defeated. Greece has joined the west and sent a corps to Yugoslavia. But as Greece is weak itself not much help can be expected.
Britain should be save as a result of the efforts made to strengthen the RAF. But the situation is quite different from what I planned and expected.
From the first turn on my idea was to use the air force as main weapon in the west. It should first of all protect Britain and make Sealion impossible. An invasion of Britain must fail without sufficient air support. Therefore superiority in the air is essential. I made two tech upgrades to guarantee that the RAF has powerful fighters available (first upgrade: Hawker Hurricane to Hawker Typhoon and Spitfire I to Spit V, second upgrade: Hawker Typhoon to Tempest and Spit V to Spit IX). The upgrade provided strong tactical bombers as well, being able to attack transport vessels and warships in case the Royal Navy needs some help. The upgrade from Bristol Blenheim to Bristal Beaufighter and now to DeHaviland Mosquito are big steps in this tech development. As 82ndTrooper used airborne divisions very successfully in the attack on France it appears as even more essential to prevent any German air unit from showing up somewhere over Britain. Several fighter squads spread all across England should guarantee that the RAF is always possible to intercept even in case some attacks by German fighters would have been flown before. The short distances between the air fields and any important place in England should enable the British fighters to attack even with very few AP left. The map shows the air fields where fighter squads are based (in Sept 40).
Second the RAF should be able to attack the German Luftwaffe in France and reduce it to an extent that makes bomber attacks possible. This strategy failed completely. After three turn paused, that I needed to deploy more fighters and build up new tactical bomber squads (that I havnt deployed before the first tech upgrade) I have sent lots of fighters to the French channel coast. The attack was a disaster. More than 30 fighters got lost, Hurricanes as well as Spitfires V and even some newly developed Hawker Thypoon. The German Luftwaffe lost 11 Messerschmitts. This failure destroyed my plans for spring and summer 1941. My idea was to bomb some French centers and reduce their production capacity. Beside this the Royal army should do some landings at French coast. It was not my intention to recapture France. British forces are too weak for that. But the landing should force Axis to send more units to France that would therefore not be available for any campaign in the east. As the British infantry might be in danger of easily being thrown into the Channel by attacks of powerful German tanks, the RAF should do ground attacks. Britain has no tanks being able to stand a fight with the German tanks as far as they were nearly equal in number. But the tactical bombers are very much able to defeat the German armour, using for example the Hawker Tempest that is available after second tech upgrade. But although being a good fighter the Hawker Tempest should not be attacked by German interceptors and use its full strength on the tanks. A British superiority in the air was regarded as being necessary for successful operations of tactical bombers. I now have to change strategy due to the desastrous result of the air battles in October.
(Being really shocked by the results of the air battles I opened the turn again and tried to do the attacks the same way. This time the outcome was 1 : 1.5 instead of 1 : 3. Only 10 fighters got lost while Germany lost 6 fighters, instead of 11 fighters to more than 30 fighters before). Many flights completed without any loss on both sides. In the first attempt there had been British losses in each attack. Results differing so much seem to me being similar to roll a dice instead of a calculation that enables the player to plan his attacks wisely. Of course there should be an uncertainty in the battles. But I am still frustrated of the way AT handles air battles. And I miss a patrol mission similar to the ones available in HoI and WitP, where few squad from different air fields can be sent to an area and take control of the sky in that area. Sending single squad in a recon mission like it is done here is not the best way option.)
[image]local://upfiles/30028/3519213CC6BA4040827B28517A5880F4.jpg[/image]
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