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DQ2004 -> RE: DQ2004's AAR #2 - "Ouch. ...that hurt" (12/11/2013 4:29:54 AM)
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As 1942 commences all sides assess their situation.
For the Allies, it is the hope that the US will be in the war soon to try to turn the tide. They realise too that they have made a terrible mistake; the US needs two aircraft carriers in Pearl Harbor to be able to declare war on the Japanese. However they can’t even pass War Appropriations yet! They should be able to in Jan-Feb 1942. Of course the Japanese are also waiting for War Appropriations with the intention of declaring war immediately following that bill passing.
The US fleet has plenty of submarines, transports and amphibious units under construction as well as new aircraft carriers of course. There are also a reasonable amount of land units available to reinforce Europe. Where to strike first?
One thought is to leave the Indian Ocean to the Commonwealth, and use the US forces to invade Murmansk and French North Africa. The Indian Ocean is still at risk from the Italian fleet however, and this may not be possible when Japan joins the fray. Even the UK is still not safe with the Russian campaign almost a sideshow. In the Med Greece will not hold out much longer and it is not possible (or at least very easy) to reinforce anyway.
For the Soviets their only hope now is survival. If they can hold at the Urals they can survive until hopefully the US distracts the Germans sufficiently that they can build up and strike back in 1944. It will be a long drive back to Berlin even so. The biggest worry is that their production is lower even than that of Italy now! The Germans don’t need to do much to keep them down. The Urals aren’t all that they’re cracked up to be as a defence line either, with a rail line that goes around them to the south, and the centre with only forest. A concerted effort from the Wehrmacht will surely breach it, and then the Germans will be aiming for Novosibirsk, the last blue factory city, and all that will stand between them and conquest of the USSR…!!
Here then is global control at the start of 1942. Will it be the decisive year? And decisive for whom?
Please note the Vichy areas are grey also, so technically this is Axis & Axis allied in grey, rather than Axis controlled in those cases.
[image]local://upfiles/46315/A063BA45D0DB46C0ACEF4ED017BD329D.jpg[/image]
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