Asia for the Asians

 Stalin has an involuntary bowel movement as he sees Hilter deploy a powerful SS mechanised corps, another mechanised corps, a panzer corps, three strong infantry including militia corps and a decent militia corps to his two weak militia armies and one excellent medium bomber unit to his adequate fighter and light bomber unit.The Polish front way well get cracked open. The Japanese massed forces in the Pacific cause concern to the Allies. The Axis win initiative but the Allies give up their +1 advantage for a reroll and gain advantage - Stalin did not want Hitler to get the jump on him. The Allies easily win initiative. The weather is bad - snow in the North, rainy in North Monsoon and Stormy in South Monsoon. All this makes the Japanese planned invasions difficult and impossible in some areas. Yamamoto curses. 

China bombards Japanese fores with artillery and mainly misses but manages to flip over a Japanese HQ in North China. The US sends convoy escorts out for next Turn in the East Coast. The Commonwealth chooses a Naval action and also tries to find the Italian convoy in the West Med but fails. They send old batleships into both Med sea areas and the sub into the Italian coast. They are trying to intercept any attempted rescue of the Italian forces in Libya using Transports. South African territorials are transported to Perth, Australia. Soviets move cavalry and the Timoshenko HQ to the east of the German salient in the Pripyet Marshes whilst moving powerful forces to the West of the Salient. Massed Soviet forces using their winter bonuses for the better (white print) units attack the German innfantry corps of the North east salient breaking through them (so they will return next Turn). Stalin promotes the 4th Guards Tank Army into the 2nd Guards Banner Tank Army.  Here is a picture of the potential pocket of Axis troops.

Mussolini uses a combined action. He holds his breath and sends out his entire available Regia Marina (apart from those earmarked for convoy escort duty) including all 4 battleships as escorts for his 2 Transports and sends them via the East Med as they have no enemy naval aircraft there to help spot them. The Regia Marina evades all Royal Navy interception attempts and evacuates the Graziani HQ and the Libra mechanised corps to Italy. Churchill is at best mildly annoyed. As the weather is too bad to launch invasions in the Southern Monsoon zone Japan does some minor shuffling around of units. 

Hitler uses a Land action as his main problem is the potential "Kessel" or pocket of Axis forces and he wants to move them out along with Mussolini. The HQ and 5-4 mountain corps can only move one hex south east as they entre the zocx of the cavalry and Timoshenko HQ but the other units move 3 hexes south. A German militia unit rail moves to Paris but other militia units rail move to Poland and to Lvov. Powerful German armoured forces including the SS mechanised corps move towards Poland. Hitler spends an Offensive Point to send his u-boats far and wide. Faroes Gap carnage occurs again and a light carrier and a light cruiser is damaged, a light cruiser and 6 convoys/ tankers are sent back to port whilst a u-boat is damaged and the other is sent home. A Soviet convoy is sunk in the North Sea. 

Next impulse the weather is Fine all over and Yamomoto shouts "Tora! Tora! Tora!" He can't wait till his Impulse to smash the Westerners and bring the ashes of their Empire to Hirohito. A mass bomber raid with Mosquito night fighter cover heads for the Ruhr. The Ju88 night fighter rises to intercept them but the Mossie gets revenge for the Mossie fighter bomber and shoots down the night fighter which does at least manage to abort one of the bombers. Heavy flak sends back one of the bombers and reduces the effectiveness of the remaining two bombers which manage to cause one build point damage. The Gort HQ reorganises the convoys but existing spare convoys and tankers move up into the Faroes Gap largely replacing the previoulsy scattered convoys. In North Africa the two armoured tank corps destroy the left behind Roma motorised corps. In China Mao leads a concerted massive attack on the disorganised Japanese HQ and artillery divison. Two Chinese armies are destroyed but they do get to destroy the artillery division. All remaining Chinese units are flippped over. The US sends the two carriers out to sea to avoid being caught in a Pearl Harbour surprise attack. A motorised corps is transported out to Greenland ready to be transported quickly to the UK. Stalin could have surrounded the pocket but the Germans have moved enough forces nearby to break the encirclement easily in their Impulse and then heavily damage the encircling troops. Instead he bludgeons the mountain corps at the top northern end of the salient and despite Luftwaffe air support it is destroyed. Soviet air assets deply forward near to the front line. They tensely await an assault on Zaporhyze at the South of the Dnepr in the German impulse.

Mussolini wants to sink coonvoys with his East African based sub but the easiest to reach are Free French. To Hitler's annoyance he declares war on Free France and sends subs into both areas of the Med. The US reacts badly and an Entry token is drawn. In the Red Sea the French convoys are sent back to port by the E African based sub. In the East Med a Hurricane fighter and a light cruiser are sent back to their bases and two convoys sunk with the sub being sent back to base. A fantastic impulse is soured slightly by the Beaufighter shooting down an Italian flying boat in the West Med. In Poland the Italian infantry and Balbo HQ join the ring of steel on the southwestern stack of Soviet armies. 

Hitler launches a massive ground and air attack on Zaphorhyze with end result being everyone disorganised and one militia army lost. Pencils thrown at OKW. Near Berlin a massive German blitz wipes out two Soviet armies and advances past Zhukov. In south Poland the Guards Banner Tank army is disorganised and an AA division and sturmovik is destroyed but the ring of Axis steel is disorganised and a German and Hungarian infantry corps is lost. Hitler sniffs opportunity. 

Now comes the really fun part. Japan pays 9 Offensive Points to combine a Land and Naval impulse. Japan declares war on the Commonwealth and Netherlnds East Indies and proceeds to try and kick the Europeans out of Asia.  The US reacts with surprise and anger drawing 5 entry chits and will draw 3 not 2 entry chits during the US entry phase. A surprise impulse in fine weather means that invading hexes that are undefended, not in the ZOC of enemy units or a city hex is not contested by enemy forces. Hong Kong and Christmas Island are occuppied by one division each invading from light cruisers. Rabaul in Papua New Guinea is invaded by two divisions including a mountain division. Marine divisions take the single oil fields in Netherlands East Indies. The Japanese Imperial Guard marines make an opposed landing on Sumatra between the two Netherlands corps with two paratrooper division landing and battleship support. The Special Naval Landing Force marine corps and Yamamoto HQ make an unopposed landing to take a port at the other end of Java. Massed bombers attack Singapore whilst Japanese forces advance through Malaysia but only disoganise the Indian Garrison corps and the Australians are untouched. In Burma a Japanese infantry corps plus bicicyle using special forces division and Siamese troops attack Rangoon with the river providing no benefits due to surprise and with battleship support. Rangoon is taken with all the defenders destroyed but they tke their bitter historical foes the Siamese with them. Japan has struck a massive blow against the European colonial powers. Japanese forces including armour advance into the mountains left vacant by the dead Chinese army from the previous impulse. Japanese subs fail to knock out the convoy in the Bay of Bengal to Singapore meaning the Garrison corps will flip back over to organised at end of Turn.

Then the Turn ends. Another short Turn! Japan is annoyed as would like to have made progress in Singapore and Netherlands East Indies but Hitler is happy as he hopes to try again at Zaporozhe and puruse his breakthrough in Poland.  No Partisans appeared. Momentum builds towards war in the US. Fireside chat, Truman Committee (allowing all potential units to be built and obsolete units to be disbanded) and the National Guard is called up (meaning the Reserves are deployed such as a good motorised corps and a marine corps). The US needs at least another Turn to pass war appropriation bill and improve its war production modifier. Yamamoto battleship alpong with other battleships and vessels drops to the 3 sea box in case its needed in a Land impulse to attack Singapore. The milchow u-boat and the best u-boat with 4 sea attack factors go to the 0 box in US East Coast ready for both to pop up in the 4 box next turn and attack convoys.