RE: Solitaire game starting late '42

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RE: Solitaire game starting late '42 - 8/15/2021 10:25:06 AM

EUBanana

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I guess the Finnish army is destined to be forever used in a siege then.

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RE: Solitaire game starting late '42 - 8/15/2021 1:09:17 PM

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i believe they called it border defense and is likely why they remained a country unto themselves post war ;-)

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RE: Solitaire game starting late '42 - 8/15/2021 11:12:04 PM

EUBanana

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Well the Axis lose a MECH o shatter an INF near Leningrad, not exactly a good exchange.

Aside from that the line is straightened up a bit in Europe.

In China, the Japanese reorganise their rather pitiful defence as much as it allows, railing a unit out of Manchuria.

I guess Japan should've stepped on China a lot harder in the early game...

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RE: Solitaire game starting late '42 - 8/15/2021 11:28:33 PM

EUBanana

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Impulse #8

US takes a combined, the rest land.

US sends Catalina/P51D to the Marianas to try and clear out that transport. however, on a 9, they do not find it.

Four heavy bombers strategic bomb Germany to try and return to the UK - two are shot down, for 1 German FTR. Flying over the Reich is dangerous these dasys. No bomb hits because Allied luck on strat bombing is awful.

I think the Chinese airforce is finally better than the Japanese one too, at least the Japanese one as deployed in China.

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RE: Solitaire game starting late '42 - 8/15/2021 11:53:19 PM

EUBanana

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Fair bit of ground combat from the Allies... the Commonwealth captures Turin without a fight. As Kwajalein isn't cut off, the US decides to continue in France instead.

Vague sense of Axis collapse, I must admit....

I missed a couple, and they were important. Manstein got caught and destroyed just outside Kursk, and in the south, Russian armour manages a breakthrough over the DNieper by Rostov.

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RE: Solitaire game starting late '42 - 8/15/2021 11:58:21 PM

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And on a 2, the May/June turn ends, leaving the Axis EXTREMELY battered.

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RE: Solitaire game starting late '42 - 8/15/2021 11:59:54 PM

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Ruh roh

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RE: Solitaire game starting late '42 - 8/16/2021 12:01:06 AM

EUBanana

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Even in China it's looking pretty bleak... as the Japanese lost their HQ.

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RE: Solitaire game starting late '42 - 8/16/2021 12:46:37 AM

EUBanana

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The turn ending so abruptly kinda throws the Allies off a bit, there's naval actions they wanted to take. But it's not so bad. No egregious errors, like leaving France out of supply...

Germany scraps a 3-1 GARR, a 5-3 INF, and a Bf109F-1.

Germany has 41 points
5 MIL
2 pilot
2 FTR-3
1 FTR-2
1 antitank
2 INF
Manstein again
1 SUB construction

Japan has 18
Umezu
2 INF
2 pilots
CVA-0
CVA-1
FTR-2

China has 6
2 pilot
FTR-2

Commonwealth has 35
2 ENG
ARM
2 pilot
2 FTR-2
Offensive

US has 61
3 TRN
4 pilot
2 FTR-2
2 FTR-3
MECH-div
ARM-div
2 offensives

Soviet Union has 36
1 MECH
2 INF div
3 pilot
2 LND-2
Offensive

Germany destroys the factories at Kursk and Rouen.

Japan gets a couple of Franks and an ARM on the board this turn... high hopes that these will give China a good swatting.

US gets two more Essexes. Planes arrive for them too, it's almost like there's some vague organisation going on here.

Germany by far had the most reinforcements, lots of MILs, shattered armour returning, a lot of quality fighters. the Soviets had just a couple of INF this turn by way of comparison...

Axis have the initiative which is good, means they can set up some defensive lines. Jul/Aug 1944 about to begin...

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RE: Solitaire game starting late '42 - 8/16/2021 7:34:41 PM

EUBanana

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Everybody land bar Italy, who takes a combined.

The Italian fleet - now down to BB Roma and CA Zara - sortie to the Italian coast, which currently has just a CP on the 0 box and some cruisers escorting. The CW puts a Harrow in the 0 box just in case, but there's no combat.

Germany tries some bombing - despite fairly even odds I think, it's pretty much a disaster for them.

As Germany has focused more on fighters for a while though now they probably have pretty much at least parity everywhere now, at least for FTR-2s.

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RE: Solitaire game starting late '42 - 8/16/2021 7:51:57 PM

EUBanana

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France actually gets the lions share of reinforcement... that's a lot of fighters especially.

But then France is small so there's only a few hexes to war over.

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RE: Solitaire game starting late '42 - 8/16/2021 7:53:55 PM

EUBanana

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On the other side of the world, Japan strips Manchuria to the bone to form some defences around Peking. Hata evacuates Wuhan having been told he's now commanding the defence...

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RE: Solitaire game starting late '42 - 8/16/2021 7:56:09 PM

EUBanana

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On the plus side (for the Axis) the Alps looks completely impassable with those MNTs in the mountain passes.

On the other hand the situation in Greece is developing... and Vichy France nervously arranges it's troops on its border properly.

And the Yugoslav partisans have become a full on army of their own. There's no way the occupying forces can deal with them in the mountains.

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RE: Solitaire game starting late '42 - 8/16/2021 8:02:31 PM

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And the eastern front is thin indeed. Kesselring is in a bit of a bind for sure, a blitz at the end of the last turn, and a perfectly timed 'end of turn', left him swinging in the wind.

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RE: Solitaire game starting late '42 - 8/16/2021 9:00:54 PM

EUBanana

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Impulse #2.

US goes for a Supercombined, CW a naval, USSR an Air (to use their huge airforce to reduce the strongpoints on that thin line), China a land.

The CW mostly does whaty ou might expect - convoy duty, fleet in the North Sea, fleet in the Italian Coast. 2 subs to South China Sea. MAR + TRN arrives at Calcutta. MOT-div and CAV-div arrives at Bombay all the way from the UK thanks to t he now considerable Allied transport network.

The US fleet is only slightly more interesting. They want to rebase to Rabaul so they have to be out, and they are mostly in the Marshalls simply because they can't really be anywhere else productive, at least in the Marshalls they can attack Kwajalein. It's less relevant now given Rabaul is better but it's still a nice to have. Also Bunker Hill and Yorktown 2 arrive at Pearl. Also BB North Carolina and some cruisers go to the Solomons to make sure it's cut off from all sides.
MacArthur and an INF-div arrives at Port Moresby, so we got him, Nimitz at Rabaul, and Hodges at Honolulu atm. A single convoy point is fed into the Marianas to try and supply Iwo Jima.

The sub campaign is really starting in earnest now. 3 US subs in the Sea of Japan have a look, find nothing. 2 CW and 1 US sub in the South China Sea have a look - are found by the escorting naval air, which damages the US sub.

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RE: Solitaire game starting late '42 - 8/16/2021 9:04:26 PM

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In the Marianas a US submarine and LBA from Eniwetok duel with LBA from the many Japanese islands covering this sea zone.

The US wins that little duel though. Kwajalein cut off.

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RE: Solitaire game starting late '42 - 8/16/2021 9:14:10 PM

EUBanana

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Some strategic bombing, Berlin, Prague, Nuremberg, Lille. Lille and Nuremberg are defended, the raid on Lille is escorted as well though. Matters nothing, lucky rolls mean two dead bombers. While the Allies roll a 2 on both strategic bombing rolls and achieve nothing as per usual. The survivors return all over, northern Italy, Greece, the UK.

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RE: Solitaire game starting late '42 - 8/16/2021 9:31:32 PM

EUBanana

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And a LOT of groudn attacks and air to air combat.

These are just the bombers that got through and hit.

The only results from the tactical bombing in the air were aborts, so it was quite bloodless in the air.

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RE: Solitaire game starting late '42 - 8/16/2021 10:00:36 PM

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There's a fairly brutal air battle over Occupied France as the US armour pushes eastwards and runs into crack German panzer troops... and an equally crack Luftwaffe, there's some fight being up alright.

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RE: Solitaire game starting late '42 - 8/16/2021 10:02:10 PM

EUBanana

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In the end the Allies do manage to push forward a bit. But are disrupted a bit. Kwajalein's guys don't matter as there's only one attack per naval turn after all, but France isn't going to instantly collapse it seems.

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RE: Solitaire game starting late '42 - 8/16/2021 10:14:26 PM

EUBanana

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And finally all the US aircraft move up. The medium bombers in Italy, mostly unused, all relocate to France. Places like Trieste and the Alps seem a bit hard, to put it mildly, to get over. Better to push in France.

And in the Pacific there's a general moving forward of air units the the various islands. Right now the US is looking at

Wake Island - B29
Eniwetok - P51D + Catalina
Kwajalein - P51D + B17G
Namu - Helldiver
Majuro - P38H, B17F
Efate - A29 Hudson
Rabaul/New Britain (its spread out) - P38, P38G, 2 x Beaufort VIIIs, Mosquito Mk40, A24 Dauntless

Not that the Japanese are slouches either. With Saipan, Truk and the Philippines they have 7 LBA covering the Bismarck Sea potentially... Seems like the path to Iwo Jima at least is safer than it was, though, another 2 LBA covering it now.

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RE: Solitaire game starting late '42 - 8/25/2021 7:08:07 PM

EUBanana

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Other games came into my life, specifically friends nagging me to play Overwatch, so there's been none of this for a while.

But the intent was always to finish and I have some spare moments now, so here we go.

Axis impulse #3, Jul/Aug 44.

Germany takes a land, Japan takes a combined, they have some tropos to TRN to China, Italy will always be a combined as they move their dregs around.

No naval combat aside from BB Roma being bombed by a Beaufort in the Italian Coast. The last few struggles of the Italian naval remnant. Lots of potential combat from US subs in the Pacific but it doesn't happen.

No airstrikes from Germany. They do rail some units to Sevastapol, to the HQ there. Aside f rom the blitzed and disorganised panzers, they take up defensive lines on the Seine in France. The Alpine passes look absolutely rock solid to me, factors around the 30 mark in the defence, the CW isn't going through there.

the Eastern Front though is tissue thin. Its why no ground strikes, the Luftwaffe will have to pull a miracle out of the bag in defensive ground support this turn.

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RE: Solitaire game starting late '42 - 8/25/2021 7:11:51 PM

EUBanana

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France being shored up...

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RE: Solitaire game starting late '42 - 8/25/2021 7:13:32 PM

EUBanana

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Just generally an exceptionally thin front line in the east... Pskov is better, in fact German armour is building, but not enough to risk another attack this impulse I think.

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RE: Solitaire game starting late '42 - 8/25/2021 7:17:42 PM

EUBanana

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Meanwhile in China, the Japanese get their Franks and their ARM onto Chinese territory. As the Franks will completely dominate Chiang's lend lease I think that will help a lot even though the ground units are a bit one sided now in China's favour. And China has no counter to the ARM either.

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RE: Solitaire game starting late '42 - 8/25/2021 8:35:22 PM

EUBanana

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So, Allies go, everybody takes a land action.

The Russians wanna smash through that thin line while the opportunity presents itself, so blow an O-chit, their last one, on Zhukov, who is centre-north, just SW of Moscow.

The air action is busy, Chiang doesn't dare the Franks, the the Allies elsewhere do. The German defence is quite weak, they shoot down a B26C over Rouen though. On the Eastern Front the Soviet fighters hold them back.

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RE: Solitaire game starting late '42 - 8/25/2021 9:19:26 PM

EUBanana

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Then is just a mighty mass of ground combat... which the Allies win almost everywhere. The Eastern Front is torn to pieces. There's even movement in Greece.

Unfortunately my screenshots got scrubbed! The Allies rolled pretty well, everything above a 10, but most of their attacks were at +10 or more so everything went very, very well.

The frontline around Kursk, where Zhukov used the O-chit, is just obliterated in a double envelopment of the city. Kesselring in the south, enarly surrounded, is wiped out. The CW push into Bulgaria of all places, having reached the Alps they need to find somewhere else to go now.

Mao manages to push the Japanese back a bit in a mech blitz, but disorganises all his units in the process. That wsa thanks to the intervention of the IJA air force, otherwise it would've been the same deal there, but Chiangs forces didn't even bother trying to engage with the Franks there and +5 air defence made all the difference in the somewhat low factor fights in China.

Oh wait, I have some it, try this...

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RE: Solitaire game starting late '42 - 8/25/2021 9:20:26 PM

EUBanana

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The US don't do that well near Paris. This is again because of air support, combined with a bad roll (but without the air support even the bad roll would've been better results). The cream of the German air force is in France, they should probably be sending it to the eastern front in truth given the battering there, but they are spared annihilation at least.

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< Message edited by EUBanana -- 8/25/2021 9:21:03 PM >

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RE: Solitaire game starting late '42 - 8/25/2021 9:23:53 PM

EUBanana

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The Germans cut off by Cherbourg almost put up a good fight. It's not a guaranteed win anyway. But the US rolls well enough to smash them, so a few more German units go into the bag.