RE: WiF - The Second Half

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RE: WiF - The Second Half - 9/24/2014 9:44:39 PM

EUBanana

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Sep/Oct 42 Axis #1.

Rain on the Eastern Front, though China is fine.

Italy combined, Germany land, Japan naval.

Japan shifts some units around, sends submarines to the Coral Sea. I'm still not quite sure how you are supposed to advance with navies, island hopping style, surely soon as the opposition gain initiative your supply lines get cut.

Japanese submarines attack the Coral Sea. Here I get a hint as to how you advance with the navy. Allied naval bombers get to scramble to meet the threat. An Aussie Beaufort goes in the 2 box to get kills, and a Devastator goes in the 0 box. Turns out to be irrelevant, nobody finds anybody.

In the Med, Italian naval bombers fan out to cover the Eastern Med and Coast of Italy. Italian cruisers raid the Western Med, the CW really needs some sort of naval bomber presence here too. Nobody finds anybody again though.

Kharkov is in fine weather unlike the northern end of the front, so the Germans are going to try their main effort there. Much of the Luftwaffe is out of fuel though... erk. A single Stuka hits Kharkov, but gets a solid hit.

Dora shells Odessa too, which is this game's Leningrad - surrounded but by low value units and so unassailable for now. Everything there gets disorged.

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RE: WiF - The Second Half - 9/24/2014 9:57:12 PM

EUBanana

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The rain means no odds better than a +4 in the north, so the Germans decline to attack. They can get 7.5 against Kharkov. Not amazing but they go for it.

The Soviets see an opportunity to try and derail the Germans big time, so they try ground support. An Il-4 and a Mig-1 meet a Bf109F-3 over Kharkov. The 109 is shot down (pilot survives), but so is the Il-4 (pilot does not survive) so the Luftwaffe figure that'll do.

The Germans roll a 14, and Kharkov falls, though half the attackers are disrupted.

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RE: WiF - The Second Half - 9/24/2014 10:33:33 PM

EUBanana

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Sep/Oct 42, Allied #2.

US/CW naval, China/USSR land.

CW first.
All the CW transports are in the Far East... sigh. Not needed there atm, they start headed west. The Med is dangerous though so the liners go past South Africa, they can do that and get home in a single turn. A TRS at Bombay heads to Suez though...

CW plans are to really clamp down on Italy by bringing more aircraft to the Med, but that isn't happening while the TRS are all miles away. An American TRS is in Wales atm, that will help.

All the German navy is disorged bar a few cruisers. Renown/Repulse/Prince of Wales + cruisers all go to the 4 box of Bay of Biscay, that's all that is really needed as a precaution I think. In the Western Med 2 CV, 2 BB and some cruisers go to the 3 box and a couple of old BB and cruisers go to the 0 box, to counter the Italian cruiser force (The Italians plan on aborting asap!). The fleet in Malta moves to the Italian coast, mostly to make sure it doesn't get caught out supply wise.

In the Eastern med a CW TRS leaves Suez with some cruiser escort, braving the Sparviero. The Italians promptly surprise it, bomb it, sink it, and abort the escorts.

(I've not got this far in the war before, but I consider this an instructive lesson on the use of air power to control sea zones...).

In the Far East the NED navy moves to Timor, where there is a Japanese convoy point for some reason, and two subs go to the South China Sea.

Then the US.

4 SUBs at Singapore head to the South China Sea. A small fleet with a TRS and a MAR in the TRS goes to the Coral Sea, no combat with the Japanese subs there. Then an AMPH which was at Luganville with a supply battles through the Coral Sea and drops its cargo there with Nimitz, making me feel a lot safer about basing stuff there.

Yorktown and Saratoga arrive at San Francisco as they need to replenish carrier air. The fleet at Rabaul stay put, they got 90 naval factors and a couple of CVs (the Japanese are no better off with CVs now) but they can only make it to the 1 box off Truk, doesn't seem an auspicious place to be. SoDak and Massachusetts go all the way from the West Coast to the Coral Sea, as part of fixing that problem...

Fair bit of transport from the east coast to the UK. 2 PAR and 2 MOT in the Faeroes sea space, plus whatever's landed already, the Jolly Green Giant is waking up for sure. An AMPH ventures into the North Sea, planning on rebasing on the south coast of the UK (Plymouth is full of ground units, no room for Yankee landing troops).

And then the naval combat.

The Allied submarines in the South China Sea surprise their targets...

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RE: WiF - The Second Half - 9/24/2014 10:40:41 PM

EUBanana

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A submarine combat is forced upon the Japanese. The Netherlands sub is damaged and aborted, 2 more US subs are aborted, but 3 out of 5 convoy points are sunk and the remaining 2 are aborted. A bad day for Japan I think for minimal Allied cost... And then, noob disaster! I move the NED submarine to Singapore first. Unfortunately then the US subs can't go to Singapore as they don't cooperate with NED, and so they end up in out of supply Kuching. Great.

No other naval combat happens this turn (Coulda happened in the Italian coast, Coral Sea and Bismarck Sea zones, the latter is just a solitary Catalina in the 4 box).

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RE: WiF - The Second Half - 9/24/2014 10:44:57 PM

EUBanana

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Sep/Oct 1942 Allied #2

Not much in the way of ground strikes, the Nationalist Chinese unleash their lendleased airforce on the Japanese. A Nate comes up to challenge the P40... the bomber is cleared through and the nate breaks off.

The Boston doesn't do all that well though, against a 3 stack its achievement is to disorg the armoured division there.

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RE: WiF - The Second Half - 9/24/2014 10:54:42 PM

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And then I'm looking at the Russians and shaking my head. They look in a state of almost complete collapse to me. They dont have enough units to hold a proper front line so the front is veeeeery thin, especially in the south. Kursk and Stalino are strong points, as is a forest by a curve in the Donetsk river. A couple of units caught out of supply by the rain are about to be swallowed up in the German mass. The north is looking faintly better in terms of unit density but still seems to be a deeply flawed position.

Lexington, Saratoga and Yorktown all get 4 point carrier air loaded onto them in San Francisco at the end of the turn. A CW Sunderland flies to Gibraltar. Ike gives the CW a hand and reorgs a Commonwealth TRS in Plymouth.

And the next impulse is... fine weather across the globe. Russia starts panicking...

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RE: WiF - The Second Half - 9/24/2014 11:06:58 PM

composer99

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It's been quite some time since I read the early pages of the AAR, but as I recall, the USSR defended pretty far forward at the outbreak of war, correct?

Even in 1942, defending up front is probably not a good plan.

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RE: WiF - The Second Half - 9/24/2014 11:33:27 PM

EUBanana

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quote:

ORIGINAL: composer99

It's been quite some time since I read the early pages of the AAR, but as I recall, the USSR defended pretty far forward at the outbreak of war, correct?

Even in 1942, defending up front is probably not a good plan.

The first real line of resistance was around Pskov and Vitebsk in the north, and more or less level with the Dniester in the south. Then the Russians fell back to the Dnieper and around Smolensk. Now it looks like everything is shaky again, so in the north the Russians are going to try and stack up in the forests around Moscow and the forests around Bryansk,and in the south probably along the Don around Voronezh and the foresty bits on the far side of the Donets.

The whole 'fighting retreat' thing is pretty hard as you leave a bunch of disorged units behind all the time.

The German oil situation is pretty bad though, for starters they gave a lot of oil to the Italians to keep their fleet going, have been fairly busy with their submarines, and seconds Ploesti has been relentless bombed with lucky rolls. The Luftwaffe was only half reorganised this turn as a result. So maybe the Russians can cling with a fingernail until the weather turns bad, but we'll see, this turn looks to be a long one.

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RE: WiF - The Second Half - 9/25/2014 12:28:56 PM

Orm

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USSR looks in a decent position to me. As long as the Western Allies provide support by lending resources and build points to USSR they should be fairly strong for next summer. Just remember to continue to rail factories so that they can continue with production even if they lose some territory.

CW and USA should be prepared to do an invasion in Europe once the spring arrives to draw forces away from the Russian front.

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RE: WiF - The Second Half - 9/25/2014 12:56:59 PM

EUBanana

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Orm

USSR looks in a decent position to me. As long as the Western Allies provide support by lending resources and build points to USSR they should be fairly strong for next summer. Just remember to continue to rail factories so that they can continue with production even if they lose some territory.

CW and USA should be prepared to do an invasion in Europe once the spring arrives to draw forces away from the Russian front.

Three hexes from Moscow and the USSR unable to hold a continuous line... it's late in the year though, bad weather will give the Russians a chance to rebuild. But... if it turns out to be a mild winter the Germans will be able to press on a fair bit more. They still have an O-chit if a particularly firm line needs to be broken, too.

I'm not lending any build points to the USSR atm actually, perhaps the Allies should do so. As the U-boats are currently out of fuel there may be enough spare convoy points kicking around to do it. And yeah, the CW/USA are trying to get into a fit state to open a second front against Germany ASAP, which is desperately needed. I think by summer 43 they should be in a position to put a fairly large force somewhere on continental Europe.

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RE: WiF - The Second Half - 9/25/2014 1:39:33 PM

Orm

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At this point of war I suspect that the number one priority for the Western Allies should be to send build points to USSR. Priority number two should be to send oil and resources to USSR. Everything else is secondary. Many a times has the Allies lost because of sending to little to late to USSR.

But this is easy to neglect and I often do so.

Sending ten build points per turn were once the minimum, for me, to send to USSR during the first years of the German/USSR war. Somehow that has become reduced a lot over the years to become close to nothing. But that is most likely a huge mistake on my part.

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RE: WiF - The Second Half - 9/25/2014 1:44:31 PM

EUBanana

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Orm

At this point of war I suspect that the number one priority for the Western Allies should be to send build points to USSR. Priority number two should be to send oil and resources to USSR. Everything else is secondary. Many a times has the Allies lost because of sending to little to late to USSR.

But this is easy to neglect and I often do so. Sending ten build points per turn were once the minimum, for me, to send to USSR during the first years of the German/USSR war. Somehow that has become reduced a lot over the years to become close to nothing. But that is most likely a huge mistake on my part.

Mmm ok. I'll see what sort of Murmansk convoys can be set up in the winter turns. Should be easier than in the real world, as Norway is neutral, so not much the Germans can do about it - beyond trash convoy points in general.

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RE: WiF - The Second Half - 9/25/2014 1:58:48 PM

Orm

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From India to USSR by the Persian route might be considered as well if Japan is not to much of a threat to convoys in that area.

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RE: WiF - The Second Half - 9/25/2014 2:04:59 PM

EUBanana

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Orm

From India to USSR by the Persian route might be considered as well if Japan is not to much of a threat to convoys in that area.

Persia is Soviet held but I believe there is a German partisan there athwart one of the railways... I'd have to have a look to see if there's actually a route.

Needless to say there are no spare Soviet troops for Persia at the moment!

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RE: WiF - The Second Half - 9/30/2014 1:11:29 PM

EUBanana

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Sept/Oct 42 Axis #3

Italy combined, the rest land

Italy sorties the fleet into the western Med - there is an 8 ship Allied CVTF in the 3 box, if the Italians can force a surface combat they can make a mess of that.

The surprise rolls are not kind - Italy rolls a 9, CW a 2. The Italian fleet is heavily bombed. They still outnumber the Allies in naval factors by 2 to 1, so they linger, but that's the only combat that happens.

There follows a battle between Italian land based air and the Commonwealth force in the Coast of Italy sea zone. One Italian bomber is forced to abort, the other is shot down. Looks like the CW owns the Mediterrean, bar the Eastern Med.

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RE: WiF - The Second Half - 9/30/2014 1:18:23 PM

EUBanana

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Then the Germans launch various ground strikes on Russian positions. The Red Air Force, what's left of it, rises to meet the enemy, aborts a bomber but is shot down in turn.

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RE: WiF - The Second Half - 9/30/2014 1:19:39 PM

EUBanana

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Looks like the Bf110 was superfluous, the Nebelwerfer did the job on its own...

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RE: WiF - The Second Half - 9/30/2014 1:31:34 PM

EUBanana

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A lot of Axis attacks but the odds are all much lower than der Fuhrer hoped (intervention by a Shturmovik didn't help). But fine weather, not going to get many more chances in 1942, so go for it.

The Japanese have been biding their time for a while by Manila, but it's been bad weather for months on end.

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RE: WiF - The Second Half - 9/30/2014 1:35:14 PM

EUBanana

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Well and truly over the river...

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RE: WiF - The Second Half - 9/30/2014 1:39:03 PM

EUBanana

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Attritional warfare at Odessa, but the Axis units lost are not very valuable ones.

"Germans are expensive, send in the Romanians.".

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RE: WiF - The Second Half - 9/30/2014 1:49:48 PM

EUBanana

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Sep/Oct 1942 Allied #4

Here's the Eastern Front at the start of the Allies turn, after the German assaults...

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RE: WiF - The Second Half - 9/30/2014 6:32:10 PM

EUBanana

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Wallies take naval, USSR/China land.

A fair bit of reorganising at sea as the Wallies get a convoy line to the USSR set up. The CW has a 5 point convoy line to Murmansk already, the USA will take another round to do likewise.

The US also sends a Beaufighter to Gibraltar, and deploys the fleet around Truk, looking for an engagement with the IJN, which in that zone is lacking any carriers at all.

Unfortunately, despite using a Catalina in the 4 box to try and engage, the Axis surprise the US and force a surface engagement. Plentiful US battlewagons inflict some damage to the IJN, though...

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RE: WiF - The Second Half - 9/30/2014 6:34:13 PM

EUBanana

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With some sucking luck, the USN suffers rather worse... at least in the long term.

However the US shrugs, lots of Essexes in the pipeline.

The Japanese are left with ~40 naval factors to the USN's ~66, and the IJN have no carriers unlike the USN, and so they choose to abort rather than get beaten on some more which seemed most likely. Thus, Bismarck Sea is under US control, for now anyway.

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RE: WiF - The Second Half - 9/30/2014 6:40:57 PM

EUBanana

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There's a lesser engagement in the Western Med as well, when Commonwealth carriers find the carrierless Regia Marina.

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RE: WiF - The Second Half - 9/30/2014 6:44:17 PM

EUBanana

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However the Italians linger, eying the convoy and its escorts, and succeed in forcing a surface engagement with it!

Bad luck means an Italian modern CA goes down, but the Commonwealth suffers worse.

After that the Italians have had enough, having equal naval factors with the CW, and (more importantly to me anyway) no heavily armoured ships to absorb hits left.

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RE: WiF - The Second Half - 9/30/2014 6:56:03 PM

EUBanana

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Sep/Oct 42 Allied #4.

The USSR rail moves the factory in Kalinin to the central USSR, far from the fighting, and then reorganises the front.

In the north the positions around the Dnieper are abandoned in favour of a line in front of Moscow in the forests there, aside from a strong point at Bryansk, in part because Bryansk has a disorged Shtumorvik in it...

In the south, units fall back to Vorenezh, though again they linger in the cities.

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RE: WiF - The Second Half - 9/30/2014 6:59:48 PM

EUBanana

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No attacks, so the impulse ends.

The weather is kind to the Allies...

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RE: WiF - The Second Half - 9/30/2014 7:05:51 PM

EUBanana

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Sep/Oct 42 Axis #5

Germany land, Japan combined, Italy combined.

Italian submarines head to the western Med to try and take out the convoy point there, the escort is gone now due to the action last impulse where the CW fleet in the 0 box got drubbed (still CVs in the 3 box though but bad weather).

Japan moves a transport to the South China Sea - due to having 0 convoy points there thanks to the earlier Allied submarine activity the supply on Java has been cut, this reopens it.

The Italian submarines fail to find anything though...

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RE: WiF - The Second Half - 9/30/2014 7:39:37 PM

EUBanana

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Allies all pass. Theres only a 30% chance of the turn ending if they do this but none have anything particularly burning to do, even the USSR only has a few slight things to rearrange. Worth the risk, they deem.

A '5', the turn continues, and its all fine weather too!

Sep/Oct 1942 Axis #9

Germany land, Italy/Japan combined (not much to do).

Japan moves a couple of AMPHs out of Truk to the China Sea, where they collect some of the MIL and MAR on the PI for use elsewhere (Java...). Theres no point maintaining an amphibious force at Truk anymore anyway IMO as the US fleet is in the South Pacific in force.

Italy sends another submarine to the West Med. This time the subs find the convoy point and sink it without loss. Mission successful, they abort back to La Spezia.

German Stukas hit Bryansk and forces adjacent to Bryansk, 2 out of 2 units disorged at Bryansk, 1 out of 2 in the hex next to it, which bodes ill for those guys.

Then the land moves for Germany... they decide to focus upon the hex adjacent to Bryansk in the north, and on Kursk in the south. They don't have enough available units for multiple attacks across the line anymore.

3 attacks, all good odds - adjacent to Bryansk, Yeremenko in the Pripet Marshes, and Kursk.

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RE: WiF - The Second Half - 9/30/2014 7:44:06 PM

EUBanana

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Good rolls everywhere for the Germans, all attacks succeed spectacularly bar the Yeremenko one, where the attackers are disorged - that doesn't matter.

Yeremenko's lil squad did manage to tie up 4-5 corps for a whole year though so not bad.

HQ support was used in the attack on Kursk though so those guys can't advance much further this turn. But with impulse 9 surely there can't be long to go.