The Low Countries conquered and some mistakes rectified

 I made several mistakes last turn including -

Germany can't lend build points to Italy whilst its neutral

Nobody can rush build a unit's completion by more than one turn in a turn so Italy decides not to rush build the amphibious lander and instead start building a paratrooper division (to build into a paratrooper corps later with a motorised division). 

Denmark couldn't field its reserve corps until the Allied impulse so Germany just marches into Denmark unopposed

Soviets can't build Militia units as they are not at war yet so will a regular Infantry army instead

I forgot to Occupy Greenland and Iceland by the US so will count that as having been done

The Soviets need to get quadruple the number of units on the the border with Germany to break the Nazi Soviet pact in 1940 - I'm going to ignore that and just use the double threshold.

  After all that Germany declared war on the Netherlands and used a combined impulse to pull their navy out of the North Sea to prepare for operations later in the year. They did a pincer movement on Rotterdam and crushed the Dutch corps there and nabbed a submarine and some surface ships. The plane unit wasn't over run and in the next impulse flew to the UK. Japan started moving units to attack Changsha whilst doing a subsidiary attack on the ChiangShek HQ so it cant support Changsha. This attackwill happen next turn as the units moving into position are disorganised by the effort of moving into position in rough terrain.

 

The UK did not have a port to sail into and  neutral Belgium was in the way. The Royal Navy sallied forth to control the seas and France prepared defences. Italy broke down an infantry corps to get a motorised division to form a paratroop corps and sailed a mechanised corps into Libya.

The Germans despite the snow declared war on Belgium and launched a coordinated blitz with air support on three Belgian cities.

Germany loses one infantry division this type but the US took a dim view of the attacks on Netherlands and Belgium and 2 US entry chits were drawn. The US transported an AA unit to Iceland to solidify their presence there. France moved infantry units into Belgium to try and gain a US entry bonus for supporting allied minor countries (thus exposing themselves to an outflanking manouevre in Ardennes as happened historically). They failed the US entry roll - just- so this was all in vain.

The weather continued to be bad in Europe so the French withdrew back across the Belgian border. Italy transported mechanised and motorised infantry to opposite ends of Libya to keep the Allies guessing where they would strike. Japan moved artillery and anti tank guns into position around Changsha. French Indochinese unis were chasing the partisans who hid in the jungle. Belgian and Dutch planes fled to the UK where their pilots will prove very useful for the Commonwealth. Germany moved panzers into the Ardennes forest but the weather was too bad to launch an attack. 

Then the turn ended which didn't suit the Axis as they had the first and last impulse so they have now lost their initiative bonus. Partisans were a threat in Burma but the Axis just failed to get a partisan counter. US decided to choose a counter for Germany/ Italy Entry pool and the combined score was 17. They chose Gift of Destroyers (lend lease destroyers allowing the Commonwealth to get discounted 10 naval units). They just made the roll to aovid increasing tension and chose Selective Serivce allowing the US to build land units more than basic infantry and cavalry units. The tension roll was failed and a marker went into the German/ Italy tension pool from the entry pool.

Those lend lease destroyers are put to immediate use as the Commonwealth takes a lot of light and heavy cruisers plus a couple of battleships out of its repair pool to arrive in 2-3 turns depending on having space in its shipyards.

More good news came for the Commonwealth as it gained 4 intelligence points.  

On the diplomatic front Germany chose both markers for attack but was shocked when cunning Stalin allocated his sole marker to attack instead of defence. Germany was able to switch one of his 4 attack markers to defence and Stalin moved one of his two defence makers to attack. This caused anxiety in German hugh command as they thought their rear was secure whilst they conquered Western Europe.