The Fall of France - almost!

 Second part of the mammoth May/ June 1940 Turn.

The good weather continues. The Japanese shuffle units around in China building up for an attack on the Communist north of China. The Italians slowly advance in the desert but will soon outrun their supply lines. The Germans blitz weak points in the French line and send two pincers into the resultant gaps to threaten Paris and encirclement of the main French front. This also has a double threat in that the French will probably have to counter attack at poor odds and risk being disorganised by their own attacks and thus becoming easier to destroy in the next Axis impulse. Note that the UK mechanised unit should not be flipped - that was a mistake on my part.

Now France had to attack - the armoured and mechanised corps with infantry joining in attacked the von Leeb HQ and 88AA protecting the western panzer thrust supply lines and drove back the HQ and destroyed the 88s with the French armoured / mechanised corps advancing to cut off the panzers. In the East many French troops incuding some who had left the Maginot line attacked hoping for more of the same but achieved little but their own disorganisation. Still a sweet blow for France.

The CommonWealth moved convoys around the oceans to try and move as many resources as possible to the factories of the UK. Subs entered the Red Sea and damaged the Italian convoys and sent the escorting destroyers back to port. The Soviets sent a tactical bomber to groundstrike the German amoured and mechanised corps. The Bf110 went to intercept countered by Soviet Il4 fighters. In the ensuing dogfight the Il4 was aborted back to base (it would have been shot down but twin engined fighters get their results downgraded against the more nimble single engined fighters). The Bf110 got shot down in return. It got worse for the Germans as the armoured corps got disorganised by the Soviet tactical bombers. Hitler curses as he had spotted a counter attack opportunity with the armour and supporting infantry against the disorganised Soviet forces on the road to Warsaw. Things get worse with the Weather roll - a 1! Storms over most areas except Snow in the Arctic and Rain in the Med weather zone. This will severely hamper combat operations including rescuing the isolated panzers let alone the drive on Paris. It also makes it more likely the end of turn roll may succeed. Althouth this gives time for Germany to rally forces in the East whwn the turn ends it also allows the large Soviet reserves to organise and be combat ready and the disorganised troops on the drive to Warsaw can also recover.

The Germans moved convoys with naval warships escorting them into the Baltic sea. They moved some infantry towards the Eastern Front and The Italians moved convoys with a massive naval escort into the East Med including all their battleships and most of their heavy cruisers and some light cruisers. The Royal Navy battleship squadron took them on and found them and along with their own light cruisers escorting their own convoys maximised their damage output and chose a target for destruction. Maybe they shuold have chosen the Italian convoys but went for one of the newer battleships and damaged the Impero. Light cruisers were sank and damaged on both sides. The two navies lost each other. The newly supplied Italian land forces moved forward in Egypt and in Palestine they eliminated the CW Palestinian unit and occuppied Jerusalem. Bad weather meant Japan did little.

In the Alllied impulse all the powers but the Commonwealth passed. The CW took a no-cost combined impulse and moved New Zealand militia to Sydney using the "Queens". The Wellingtons attacked the Italian HQ but failed to disorganise them. The albacore naval interceptor rebased to Scapa flow. Then the Allies checked for end of the Turn and made the roll! The Germans cursed as France survives for at least one more Turn! This is the first Turn Germany hasn't conquered another country. If it wasn't for that bad weather then the unlucky end of Turn roll then Paris would have fallen. Germany has an option not to create Vichy and attack French North Africa but with the duplicitous Stalin attacking in the East the Germans will want to transfer units Eastwards as fast as possible and creating Vichy is the fastest route to that.