BluecherForward

A "stable and prosperous society" does not need to put huge portions of its population in gulags or to starve them to death...so I guess you are saying that all of that was the fault of "fascists or capitalists."  Or do you mean that all of those who suffered and died under the Communists deserved it, because they were "fascists and capitalists"? If so, I hope you stay out of politics.

A "stable and prosperous society" does not need to put huge portions of its population in gulags or to starve them to death...so I guess you are saying that all of that was the fault of "fascists or capitalists."  Or do you mean that all of those who suffered and died under the Communists deserved it, because they were "fascists and capitalists"? If so, I hope you stay out of politics.

This is Communist apologism, plain and simple. It caused as much misery as it's criminal cousin, called nazism and helped Hitler get his filthy claws on the European Jews. So don't play the innocent. 

Thanks to all those extra trucks etc from the US.
Germany was never prepared for any long wars, always expected to blitz their way to victory in the few weeks or months at most.  Rommel in North Africa is another example - early brilliance and aggressive speed, but not having the supply chain to maintain the momentum or for extended ops.  
The early seesaw operations that bounced between El Agheila and east of Tobruk and back again is what makes the Afrika Korps game so fascinating (and different) from the grueling, grinding down of CMBN and steamroller of CMRT.

Despite my reputation as being just a tad puritanical, I can't help but think that the ** should be in the H-word, rather than the one beginning with f.

The thing with Rommel was hat he was never supposed to take Alexandria and Cairo, just prevent an Italian debacle.  If the Brits hadn't removed most of their best forces to Greece, the "Rommel" myth would never have happened.  The story is one where the moral is be wary of early success as it can suck you into a trap/dead-end - the same moral as in the Vietnam era "We Were Soldiers and Young..."
Once Rommel had unexpected success he became a Nazi PR tool and had to live up to his own myth.  Of course that's what he wanted and believed and like all top executives, he must have had a huge ego. 
In CM1's CMAK I once spent several months making a scaled down map for an Operation covering the entire North Afrika map from El Agheila to just west of El Alamein.  (I figured once the forces got to El Alamein, it became boring.)   The map was 8Km x 4Km... 
I wanted to have areas where one would have 2Km-3Km LOS so players could use the 88mm guns the way they were supposed to be used.  The effort took hundreds of hours to get it half done and almost gave me a nervous breakdown so had to stop.  It's the reason I have so much respect for CM2 designers - as CM2 is waaay more complex to design for than CM1 was.
Looking forward to a CM2 Afrika Korps designed by talented folks who really know what they are doing.

All wars are started with the assumption that you have a good chance of winning. It's only in hindsight we know who was right. If Russia had buckled after the losses they suffered in the first part of the war, we'd all be agreeing now that of course they would.

Now, to the topic at hand.
I think a game focusing on the Africa Korps would be really nice.
Yep, that's about it.

It has been mentioned, occasionally, that the British would have lost the Battle of Britain without American aviation fuel.
One thing to remember is that the United States was the single largest producer of petroleum products in the world during WW2 by a HUGE (we're talking something along the lines of five or six to one) margin, and the largest producer of refined petroleum products as well, especially aviation fuel, gasoline, diesel, bunker oil, etc.
If oil was the most important operational resource, then being on America's side was the single best guarantee of operational and logistical success. You can fight without it, but you probably wouldn't win without it.

Thanks Aragorn 2002,
Very interesting. Here is an excerpt from an interview Sokolov gave a Polish blog in 2014 (B.S. is Boris Sokolov):
N: Up until this day the Russian Historians use the work of Nikolai Wozniesienski called „The War Economics of the USSR during the Great Patriotic War”. It was published in 1947 – in it, the Lend-Lease was not even mentioned. It was only said, that it accounted for 4% of the total production. In the Russian textbooks it is stated, that the whole Allied help accounted for 2% of artillery, 7% of tanks, 13% of combat aircraft and only 6% in cars.Those numbers do not shock at all.
B.S: They are not true, because in the USSR the home production data was inflated. The data that showed the success of the Soviet Economy during the war and that said, that this was crucial for the victory, were just a propaganda tool to illustrate the dominance of socialism over capitalism. A lot of those lies are now deeply rooted in the war discourse. Let's take the cars (motor vehicles) as the example. If we count honestly, it turns out, that the Allied shipments accounted for not 6%, but 32% of the whole Soviet car production during the war. For the airplanes that number reached out to 25% of the whole production. Even if the numbers you gave me were true, the myth is still busted, since there is no mention of products, that were not weapons.
N: Such as the famous tushonka meat preserve – the delight of the Red Army soldiers?
B.S: For example. The preserve shipments constituted 20% of the total Soviet meat production. However, the most important were the raw materials. Aviation fuel. In 1941 r. the home production covered only 4% of the needs. Allied shipments are nearly 51% of the aviation fuel used in the Great Patriotic War, nearly 53% of gun powder and explosives. Non-ferrous metals – the help from the West is nearly 82% of copper, 90% of aluminum, 75% of nickel, 50% of lead. Without those raw materials the wartime industry is flat on it's belly. Moving on: railroad tracks – 83% of wartime USSR production, tyres and rubber – 43%, and there is still things like sugar, radiostations, armor plates, lathes, medicine... To end this discussion the most vital is the fact, that the Lend-Lease shipments helped greatly to support the resistance in the hardest year - 1942, when the whole technical potential of the Red Army from before 22nd of June 1941 ceased to exist and the evacuated factories were just beginning to return to the full capacity or were only now starting to produce new types of equipment. Without a shadow of a doubt, the USSR would have collapsed had it not been for the Lend-Lease.
https://forum.warthunder.com/index.php?/topic/154367-an-interview-with-boris-sokolov/

Thanks Aragorn 2002,
Very interesting. Here is an excerpt from an interview Sokolov gave a Polish blog in 2014 (B.S. is Boris Sokolov):
N: Up until this day the Russian Historians use the work of Nikolai Wozniesienski called „The War Economics of the USSR during the Great Patriotic War”. It was published in 1947 – in it, the Lend-Lease was not even mentioned. It was only said, that it accounted for 4% of the total production. In the Russian textbooks it is stated, that the whole Allied help accounted for 2% of artillery, 7% of tanks, 13% of combat aircraft and only 6% in cars.Those numbers do not shock at all.
B.S: They are not true, because in the USSR the home production data was inflated. The data that showed the success of the Soviet Economy during the war and that said, that this was crucial for the victory, were just a propaganda tool to illustrate the dominance of socialism over capitalism. A lot of those lies are now deeply rooted in the war discourse. Let's take the cars (motor vehicles) as the example. If we count honestly, it turns out, that the Allied shipments accounted for not 6%, but 32% of the whole Soviet car production during the war. For the airplanes that number reached out to 25% of the whole production. Even if the numbers you gave me were true, the myth is still busted, since there is no mention of products, that were not weapons.
N: Such as the famous tushonka meat preserve – the delight of the Red Army soldiers?
B.S: For example. The preserve shipments constituted 20% of the total Soviet meat production. However, the most important were the raw materials. Aviation fuel. In 1941 r. the home production covered only 4% of the needs. Allied shipments are nearly 51% of the aviation fuel used in the Great Patriotic War, nearly 53% of gun powder and explosives. Non-ferrous metals – the help from the West is nearly 82% of copper, 90% of aluminum, 75% of nickel, 50% of lead. Without those raw materials the wartime industry is flat on it's belly. Moving on: railroad tracks – 83% of wartime USSR production, tyres and rubber – 43%, and there is still things like sugar, radiostations, armor plates, lathes, medicine... To end this discussion the most vital is the fact, that the Lend-Lease shipments helped greatly to support the resistance in the hardest year - 1942, when the whole technical potential of the Red Army from before 22nd of June 1941 ceased to exist and the evacuated factories were just beginning to return to the full capacity or were only now starting to produce new types of equipment. Without a shadow of a doubt, the USSR would have collapsed had it not been for the Lend-Lease.
https://forum.warthunder.com/index.php?/topic/154367-an-interview-with-boris-sokolov/

My point is that the British took the position along the coast - the U.S. forces agreed to take the inland position - without control of ports (later the U.S. established a Cold War position in Bremen/Bremerhaven, but this was not part of the original plan). Thus, the British controlled the port areas and the U.S. was dependent upon that control - even post-war. This meant that the U.S. would have a strong strategic interest in British stability even after the war was won. This was typical of Churchill's grand strategic outlook - trying to get as much out of the post-war world as he could, in spite of the British Empire's debilitated condition.

I would like to recommend 'Myths and legends of the Eastern front, reassessing the Great Patriotic War' by Boris Sokolov. I'm not going to delve to deep into the contents, but he  has some interesting things to say about the importance of  LL ( among other things).

No offense taken Aragorn2002. I found the article thought provoking and well-written.
...so why did he attempt to go all the way into Egypt? ... with such limited logistics?...with an increasingly limited air force? ...while violating his specific mission instructions?
There is more to campaign-winning generalship than good tactics. Kind of like the argument over the "superior" Panther tank - that was complicated to produce and maintain vs the "inferior" Sherman tank argument, don't you think?

I was merely pointing out that the Soviets did not accomplish their victory on their own - as the Soviet propagandists implied for many years. It is indisputable that the lion's share of German forces were always deployed in the east. And "Europe" was not really liberated (unless you are referring to the period 1989-91) - one occupying terror regime simply replaced another in eastern Europe. Ironic that the British Commonwealth went to war originally to prevent Poland from being subjugated by Nazi Germany, but ended up acquiescing to Poland's subjugation by Stalin's Soviet Union.

Without Lend-Lease the Soviets would have lost - regardless of a Second Front.
"Now they say that the allies never helped us, but it can't be denied that the Americans gave us so many goods without which we wouldn't have been able to form our reserves and continue the war," Soviet General Georgy Zhukov said after the end of WWII.
"We didn’t have explosives, gunpowder. We didn’t have anything to charge our rifle cartridges with. The Americans really saved us with their gunpowder and explosives. And how much sheet steel they gave us! How could we have produced our tanks without American steel? But now they make it seem as if we had an abundance of all that. Without American trucks we wouldn’t have had anything to pull our artillery with." https://www.rbth.com/defence/2016/03/14/lend-lease-how-american-supplies-aided-the-ussr-in-its-darkest-hour_575559
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"By the end of June 1944 the United States had sent to the Soviets under lend-lease more than 11,000 planes; over 6,000 tanks and tank destroyers; and 300,000 trucks and other military vehicles...
We have also sent to the Soviets about 350 locomotives, 1,640 flat cars, and close to half a million tons of rails and accessories, axles, and wheels, all for the improvement of the railways feeding the Red armies on the Eastern Front. For the armies themselves we have sent miles of field telephone wire, thousands of telephones, and many thousands of tons of explosives. And we have also provided machine tools and other equipment to help the Russians manufacture their own planes, guns, shells, and bombs.
We have supplied our allies with large quantities of food. The Soviet Union alone has received some 3,000,000 tons."
https://www.historians.org/about-aha-and-membership/aha-history-and-archives/gi-roundtable-series/pamphlets/em-13-how-shall-lend-lease-accounts-be-settled-(1945)/how-much-of-what-goods-have-we-sent-to-which-allies
This is not even including the immense amount of material sent by The British Commonwealth.
*All this being said, I would also like to see an updated Barbarossa, just would like to see Afrikakorps first.
 

I must say about the above debate, that it was of such high quality, with people quoting reference papers, rather than half-remembered stories from some German general's memoirs. To summarise, if your logistics organisation cannot bring what you need to fight from the railhead to the front lines, it doesn't matter how brilliant your soldiers or generals are. QED.

So true JulianJ.

This is especially true in light of the fact that the vast majority of the losses suffered by the Soviet Union in the initial months following the onset of Barbarossa (as well as later) resulted from Stalin and his cronies gross incompetence - like "no retreat" orders in the face of the German Blitzkrieg. In fact, a strong argument can be made that the Soviet Union was an unmitigated disaster from start to finish. Here is an interesting read for those interested in broadening their horizons:

Interesting perspective, but I'm going to go with Stalin, Krushchev, and Zhukov on this subject:
"I would like to express my candid opinion about Stalin's views on whether the Red Army and the Soviet Union could have coped with Nazi Germany and survived the war without aid from the United States and Britain. First, I would like to tell about some remarks Stalin made and repeated several times when we were "discussing freely" among ourselves. He stated bluntly that if the United States had not helped us, we would not have won the war."  Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeevich; Khrushchev, Serge (2004). Memoirs of Nikita Khrushchev: Commissar, 1918-1945. Penn State Press. pp. 638–639.
Soviet Marshal G.K. Zhukov is quoted as saying: “Today [1963] some say the Allies didn’t really help us…But listen, one cannot deny that the Americans shipped over to us material without which we could not have equipped our armies held in reserve or been able to continue the war.” The Significance of the Allied Lend-Lease Program and Soviet Victory during the Second World War
"Now they say that the allies never helped us, but it can't be denied that the Americans gave us so many goods without which we wouldn't have been able to form our reserves and continue the war," Soviet General Georgy Zhukov said after the end of WWII.
"We didn’t have explosives, gunpowder. We didn’t have anything to charge our rifle cartridges with. The Americans really saved us with their gunpowder and explosives. And how much sheet steel they gave us! How could we have produced our tanks without American steel? But now they make it seem as if we had an abundance of all that. Without American trucks we wouldn’t have had anything to pull our artillery with." https://www.rbth.com/defence/2016/03/14/lend-lease-how-american-supplies-aided-the-ussr-in-its-darkest-hour_575559

That's odd. I read some of the Correlli Barnett books  years ago. There are four on the decline of british power over 100 years. I think I've read three. I disagree with his political perspective. @BluecherForwardI just added them to my Amazon wishlist this week. Long out of print but reissued on kindle; what a  coincidence.
On great military museums,  Bovington is excellent.  Especially Tiger Day, to see 131 moving in the arena. You do need to book up in advance -it gets sold out. Sunshine, drinking beer and AFVs - a pleasure. 
I also recommend IWM Duxford in Cambridgeshire (as mentioned) which has AFVs as well as aircraft. The US Aircrew memorial I found very moving. I don't want to say any more because if you go there it is a surprise which gives you a chilly recognition about the sacrifices they made.

+1
If we ever get to earlier CMFI, there should be sufficient models etc to do a decent CM Afrika Korps - even if it's just a module.

True or not that's a pretty narrow view to take on the series' prospects. The audience for wargaming isn't huge here by any means, and probably pars rather well customers in Europe of which i'm sure UK customers are a relevant slice. In any case, I as an American have no inclination to weigh the games for purchase based on the presence of US forces in it. I doubt i'm really alone on that. 

Could not agree more. I still have memories of playing the old Avalon Hill Tobruk  game which introduced me into the details of armored combat and weapons. Not to mention this game system really does vehicles and guns the best I have ever seen. 

Here's the summary from the entry on the Amazon website - FYI:
As director of the elite Foreign Counterintelligence Activity, author Stuart Herrington was the U.S. Army's top counterintelligence officer. In this thrilling and informative account he details one of the most damaging and delicate cases of espionage ever committed against the United States. Between 1972 and 1988, thousands of highly classified documents were sold to the Soviet Union and her Warsaw pact surrogates. They were secrets so sensitive that had war broken out in Central Europe, our ability to defend our NATO allies would have been seriously compromised. It was up to Herrington and his team to root out the elusive spy ring responsible for this treachery. An intriguing page-turner with more twists and turns than a spy novel, Traitors Among Us guides us through the intricate spy catcher's world of Cold War Berlin, showing us how the "game" was played when the stakes were as high as national survival.