Bloody New Year Stalin and Hilter

 The Allies won initiative for the first time and needed a reroll. I don't want Intelligence (espionage) to dominate the game so I don't roll for it often. This time the Soviets came out on top with enough points to get a dice reroll or get significant plus or minuses to a combat dice roll.

Weather was bad but not snowing. The Free French and Commonwealth took naval impulses. The Free French light cruisers patrolled the West African coast and shared patrol duties in Central and South American with the Commonwealth. The Free French had an oil supply from Iran thanks to Commonwealth tankers allowing this. A powerful Royal Navy task force of three carriers and battleships and various cruisers in support sailed into Italian coastal waters threatening to attack the Regia Marina in port. Soviets moved forces around the Ukranian front hoping to slow down the German thrust from Rumania and their advance from Poland south of the Pripiat marshes. Another factory is rail moved to the north of the country. The US moved its transport vessels from Iceland back to the US.

The Japanese rebased a long range flyiong seaboat to the Marshall Islands. The US reacted but only gained a 1 value chit. The Italians spread out in France and move air units closer to Italy to cover the Regia Marina if it sallies out. In the Rumanian/ Ukranian border the German armoured spearhead moved towards Kiev with motorised infantry guarding both flanks and the HQs providing a chain of logisitical support through the mud and rain. In the Hungarian border a joint German/ Hungarian offensive eliminated a Soviet army in forest at the cost of a Hungarian corps and half the troops being disorganised. In the west of the large Byelorussian forest an overwhelming concentric attack on two Soviet armies fared poorly with the loss of an SS infantry division and infantry corps for one Soviet army and the rest disorganised. Hitler is not amused.

The  Commonwealth transported S African and Indian corps to Egypt. Transports to Gibraltar moved to the UK. Royal Navy found the convoys and their escorts. in the resultant surface combat two British light cruisers were damaged and one aborted back to Alexandria. The Italians lost one light cruiser sunk, one damaged and two aborted back to Taranto. The Italians being heavily out gunned did want to risk another round of combat and disengaged back to home ports. The Chinese communists realising they had foolishly left two units out of supply and unluckily disorganised by artillery now withdraw Mao HQ and infantry army back to a mountanous hex becoming disorganised and abandoning two units to their fate in the desert. The Soviets moved forces to threaten the flanks of the German salient in South Ukraine even cutting off the lead panzer units and the Rundstedt HQ. Another factory was rail moved this time further East than before..

Here's a picture of the moved factories and the numbers represent how many turns they will take before being ready to produce stuff.

The Italians claimed a Mulligan and swapped Graziani HQ for the desert and Balbo in France -Graziani has a lower reorganisation value but is an armoured HQ which will be more useful in the desert.  Italy moved a fighter towards Italy and subs towards East Med. The Germans in order to help Italy used a no-cost combined impulse and moved u-boats and a naval aircraft to Bay of Biscay to help cut the Commonwealth suppply line to Gibraltar and Malta in conjunction with the Italian subs. Some u-boats went to Faroes Gap. Germany moved the Rommel HQ and infantry and motorised infantry through Western Ukraine and moved the motorised infantry to keep the supply line safe for the Eastern Ukraine salient. Ju52 transport planes flew supplies to help reorganise the panzer corps that was flipped over last impulse. Japan felt intimidared again by the size of the task in China and dreamed of ways of outflaking the Chinese position - perhaps via Burma. The Germans failed to find any convoys in Faroes Gap. In the Bay of Biscay the German planes were chased away by Hurricanes but the Commonwalth's own Albacores did nothing to the subs as they used surprise points to evade damage. Contact was then lost. In the Cape of St Vincent the u-boats damaged the convoys and sent the two escorting light cruisers back to Plymouth. In the Eastern Med the Italian u-boats failed to find any convoys so Malta and Gibraltar were still in supply.

The French seeing reports of a German auxiliary cruiser in Angola sent subs to patrol the seas and cruisers to protect convoys around the Cape of Africa. Commonwealth moved land units eastwards in the desert apart from an Indian corps towards Palestine. 

The Germans in their salient near Kiev (in-game spelling sorry) then swung round and attacked the Soviet forces to the left. In the skies above German fighters shown down Soviet fighters (the pilot survived) then the Soviet cavalry corps and infantry army were next to be wiped out. The German auxiliary cruiser Kormorant successfully ran the gauntlet of French heavy cruisers and subs but once finding an unportected sea zone failed to find target convoy. 

The Commonwealth used a no-cost combined impulse to move royal engineers to Gibraltar with a transport and a convoy to replace the one that was lost. The Soviets moved infantry armies to cut off supply near the Kiev salient. They needed a desperate very low odds attack to complete the pocket and used one of their intelligence points as a bonus on the attack. This just succeeded in wiping out the Rumanian infantry corps for the cost of a cavalry corps holding open the neck of the salient. and the two Soviet infantry armies advanced into the gap. On the other side of the salient a large concentration of Soviet forces surrounded the eastern bridgehead with a mechanised coprs and Rumanian infantry. Intelligence was used to re rol the attack and  the Germans and Rumanians retreated back across the Dniester. The Soviets also moved a factory from Vitebsk to east of the Urals. 

The US moved a convoy into the Bay of Bengal to transport an Indian resource to Burma and thence onto China via the Burma Road. This is the last straw for Japan which applies diplomatic pressure to close it. The US succeeds in making a US entry roll and draws a chit value of 3. China moves the Stilwell HQ back into Kumming. The Turn ends - annoyingly for the Allies as the Axis now gain a +1 initiative as the Turn began and ended with their Impulse. It has been a bloody new year for Stalin and Hitler - 4 corps/army sized units and  fighter unit lost whilst Hitler lost 2 minor Axis corps, a German infantry corps and SS division.

Partisans turn up in France in thhe Alps near the Swiss border and in Indonesia (Netherlands East Indies) but the Soviets use 2 intelligence points for a re roll and this time the Dutch colonialist forces manage to suppress them before they turn up. US entry chit value of 4 is drawn which allows US entry action of lending up to 5 resources to Western allies and Murrow reporting. One chit goes to the Tension pile.

The Production phase is full of interesting choices so that will be a separate blog.