Japan's juggernaut advances and the USA enters Total War
The weather is fine except in the North Monsoon area which may hinder Japan's attacks in Asia. The US chooses a no-cost combined action and aligns Central America which has two weak infantry corps but a useful 9 convoy points and 1 tanker point which the US uses to transfer one resource to itself and another to Brazil when it aligns Brazil in the future. Eisenhower HQ and the strong motorised corps are transported to Belfast. The Catalina moves to the 4 box in the US East coast sea box. Free French transport which previous impulse had set off for America stops off at Washington to pick up a Mitchell B25 medium bomber based there. Eisenhower flips over to reorganise the two Transporters in Belfast and the sub in Derry so they can go back to the US. The Commonwealth choose a no-cost combined impulse and Monty sneaks past the u-boats in the North Sea in an Amphibious transport next to Lorient. The Royal Marines occupy Lorient allowing Monty to land unharmed. Brest is now out of supply. The Canadian motorised infantry rush to acquire the resource hex near Nantes. Three aircraft carriers move into the Red Sea to port strike the Italian sub in its base in Eritrea. A French convoy moves into the Red Sea to supply the East Med. The RAF send a three heavy bomber raid at the Ruhr in daylight. The weak German fighter intercepts but is shot down by the Mosquito fighter (the pilot survives). The bombers cause 2 build point damage but at least no factories are destroyed. German High Command (OKW) mutter angrily about Hitler leaving the Ruhr undefended. Monty reorganises the AMPHIBS and the last of the Offensive points are used to reorganise him. China wary of more losses just moves a garrison corps to cut off the Japanese armoured corps in Langchow from the rest of the Japanese. The Soviets call a no-cost combined impulse. Stalin figuring the Japanese don't want to attack them AND everyone else move a cavalry corps to Kaunas and move the cavalry division to join an infantry army near there hoping to contain the German panzer spearhead. They move a convoy into the Baltic to supply any units that end up in the coast. The Germany convoys are unprotected in the Baltics and are found and sunk.
As a solo game I allow the Japanese to change their mind and occupy Guadalcanal instead of Christmas Island and allow a New Zealand corps to remain in Wellington and one to be in Canberra to stop any surprise Japanese invasions and capture of their capitals. Hitler chooses a no- cost combined impulse. He declares war on the US - as it seems to be moving troops to Europe -and Mussolini enthusiastically joins in. He then sends out some convoys with some escorts into the Baltic sea. Naval aircraft are flown into the Faroes Gap and North Sea whilst the Brest based naval aircraft rebases south to Bordeaux. His u-boats try to find targets but fail. Despite being surprised the US Catalina flying boat finds and damages one u-boat and sends the Milchow u-boat back to base in Germany. German infantry corps and panzer division are railed towards Lille from Germany. German units near Kiev rearrange themselves so Rundstedt HQ moves near Dnepetrovsk. In Poland near Kaunas many German units launch a concerted attack on a Soviet Rifle Army annihilating it. A breach in the Soviet line means the Germans can threaten to cut off many Soviet units. Rundstedt HQ flips over reorganising two panzer corps and Vlassov cavalry. Mussolini is too worried about strong Commonwealth forces in the Middle East to send many more forces to France. He starts moving his Stukas towards France. Japan chooses a no-cost combined impulse and moves an infantry corps to the Philippines to reinforce the one there. The two marine corps with an amphibious assault combine with Yamashita HQ commanding land based forces and 4 battleships including Yamamoto and attack Singapore. The defenders are destroyed and the Japanese take Singapore for the loss of the AA division and Yamashita and one of the Marines being disorganised. Churchill throws his telephone against the wall when he hears the news. The Indian National Army formed out of remnants of the garrison will join Japan next Turn along with an Indonesian garrison for conquering Netherlands East Indies. Amazingly the Turn ends there as the Axis roll 1 the only result that will end it. This leaves both Axis and Allies frustrated. Germany was about to try the door in to the Dnepr defence line and the East Ukraine as well as to attack Kaunas and envelope the Soviets in North Polamd. The Japanese wanted to complete the conquest of Philippines and protect the Burma road to Kumming to allow the oil to travel unmolested to the factory there. The US wanted to send Transports back across the Atlantic to move to France next Turn and move infantry in Iceland to France. They also wanted to align Brazil and Mexico to add their troops and industrial capacity. The CW wanted to move armoured corps towards France. Gnashed teeth all round!
Partisans can turn up in the USSR and Philippines but only arrive in the Ukraine (I only count air units as half for garrison value). They arrive in unguarded Odessa ready to cause mischief. As the US is at war with every major Axis power except Vichy it gets to automatically choose every US option except getting control of Commonwealth Atlantic possessions (it already has Northern Ireland) and it cannot occupy the Azores until 1943. The Royal Navy aircraft carriers in the Red Sea drop to the 3 box as they hope to catch the sub in its base next Turn. I realised I had made a mistake with the Italian NAV plane trying to intercept and being shot down - once it failed to intercept with its own roll another search roll isn't made by their opponents so the nav aircraft is placed back on the board.
In the Production phase the Allies are outproducing the Axis by over 50% - Japan is being outproduced 2:1 by the UK/ US and China (assuming half the UK and US production is going towards the Pacific theatre). The Axis on the other hand have more victory locations and overall stronger armed forces but with the production deficit this will gradually end. China actually has 4 factories and 4 resources (with a multiplier of 0.75 which means 3 build points) plus 4 build points from destroyed Chinese armies. As for France strictly it has to wait for Paris to be liberated to start using the Nantes factory and nearby resources but I prefer the narrative liberated French people using their one factory and resource to start building an infantry corps over 3 turns. Liberation starts now!
German Armed Forces High Command (OKW) contemplates assassinating Hitler and getting rid of many SS units in order to pay 15 Build Points (almost half they are producing this Turn) to liberate Ukraine. This stops the Soviets from counting Ukrainian cities as home cities for purposes of supply and means Ukranian units can be built. This should make it easier for Germany to withdraw from Ukraine. Hitler instead points to the close threat from the Allies in France and calls out the levee en masse and builds as many Volksturm militia units as possible to move to France to crush the Commonwealth landing. He sends his spare resources including oil tp Mussolini who can build at his full productive capacity now. Japan is also reaping the benefits of resources from its extended Asian empire. The US now at full total war and new factories is producing a whopping 55 build points - some will go to Canada to help build an armoured corps whilst the rest is split evenly between the needs of Pacific and European theatres. The Commonwealth does the same split. The Soviets same some oil to replenish supplies whilst begging the Western Allies for resources. It starts building ski divisions for winter. China puts most of its resources into building a mechanised corps (given they have no access to oil it will be the only oil using unit to be able to move or attack in an impulse). Here's the Production Wheel for the Allies - look at all those US units!
Comments
Post a Comment