Panzers, Stukas and U-boats - The Reich strikes back

 Starting with the mistakes quite a few were noticed.

Germany should have a free SS unit arrving in November/ December turn for occuppying Vienna and one in 2 turns for capturing Amsterdam. The Austrian SS unit was placed in Amsterdam with the rationale that it would have been moved there as a garrisoning unit. Italy not being able to have an AMPHIBious landing ship within the time I thought i allowed to move this ship back to the force pool and allow the Italians to put towards offensive points.

CW (CommonWealth) should have put 4 CLs from its construction pool in the first turn as they are free to build from there and so have been placed to arrive in next 3 turns as they would have been if chosen straight away. Also their Indian units a the start could have been placed anywhere in Asia so the Garrison corps is going to Singapore and the Garrison division to Ceylon and infantry corps is going to Aden. The CW also acquired a Dutch transport ship which from last turn should have been moving to the UK from Dutch Guiana.

Reinforcements arrived including the German Fallschirmjaeger Paratrooper corps which started marching north to join the air transports which had rebased to the northern Danish port of Frederickshavn last turn to be ready to strike to Norway. The Queens - Mary and Elizabeth - arrived and requisitioned for troop transport. The Chinese got a fighter and a Communist mountain corps. The French scrapped another old Battleship to get a build point. The Soviets received a pilot and with an existing spare pilot took two bombers out of reserve and rebased them close to the German front.

Weather was pretty bad again - rain in N Temperate zone. The Germans fanned out its subs and one of its better subs combined with the captured Dutch sub  in the Faroes Gap and rolled really well compared to the CommonWealth so depsite the light cruiser (CL) escorts 3 convoys/ tankers were sunk and 6 damaged! The CW remembered intelligence points due to Bletchley Park and rerolled its search and got a much better roll. Only 3 convoy/ tankers were damaged and both sides missed each in the next round of naval combat. Bletchley Park you dancer as we say in Glasgow.This succesful use of subs spread terror in the CW and Hitler is sure to order more subs to starve the UK.

 In their impulse the CW sent out battleships and aircraft carriers into the North Sea ready to scrap with the Kriegs Marine but most of its cruisers patrolled other seas around the UK and CLs went to escort duty. The Queens - very fast ships - headed for the Red Sea to bring units to Gibraltar and Asia. France moved its infnatry in Syria to French Somaliland to threaten Italian East Africa.

The next impulse was fine pretty much everywhere. Germany moved its panzers and mechanised forces back out the Ardennes and launched a blitz attack on a stack of two French infantry corps on the Belgian border and sent in stukas and a Ju88 medium bomber with Bf109s interceptor cover. The French sent up their fighters but in the dogfight one French fighter got shot down and the other aborted with only the Ju88 aborted. I let groundstrike roll for each target unit but only allow one corps plus division max to be affected. The stukas flipped over one corps and the Germans rolled a maximum result on the Blitz table. Two French corps got destroyed. The Germans advanced their armour and mechanised corps and 88mm guns into the breach and threatened the French HQ. 

 

The last two impulses with panzers, stukas and u-boats striking hard showed how frightening the early war German military machine was. There's a big gap in the French line. Japan had concentrated enough force around Changsha and stormed it and as a bonus avoided a US entry penalty. The Italians started moving units in Libya towards Egyptian border. France did seem an easy target but with the Germans nervous about their rear they may want to force a Vichy peace on France early so making them out of bounds for Italy.

The CW contemplated evacuating from France but decided instead to reinforce Gibraltar and Sudan with infantry corps. France moved infantry corps from all around to surround the Panzer troops. The French declined to attack as the odds were poor. The Chinese moved a Warlord unit to plug the gap.

It was looking bad for the Allies -more good weather and blitzes and Paris might fall this turn and then a 1 was rolled which was the only dice roll that would lead to the end of turn.

The US chose an Entry marker for Germany/ Italy and chose sending resources to the USSR allowing Allies to support the USSSR with resources and build points.

Here's a look at the Construction Circle for the Commonwealth - the outer layer is due to come on the board next turn the next outermost layer the turn after that and so forth. That's a lot of ships (each counter represents the named ship plus a few destroyers or other escort vessels) many of them under construction because of the Lend Lease destroyers gifted by the US last turn. Top left corner is the Alllied construction pool - ships ready to be completed. Couple of Polish units are waiting there for Germany and the Soviets to be at war so they can be placed in the CW force pools. Next turn promises the fall of France and possibly the entry of Italy into the war. Stay tuned!