AshesFall

Had the same problem. Played the axis AI at Intermediate (+50%). They retreated many units on the first turn. The game was essentially over by january 1942, with the axis stopped along the riga river and along the first river in the south, not having taken the mine or big cities by the lakes and river there. I could start pushing the germans back and destroying quite a few of their units, I stopped playing there as the conclusion was inevitable. By contrast, the soviet AI at intermediate gave me a match until december 1943, when all but four of their cities were conquered (three in the far south mountains near baku and one on the northeast). I found it a little odd that the soviets kept fighting with 0 national morale for half a year.

Hey claude. I couldnt PM you, so I'll write here instead. I've been MIA for a week or so, so I've sent Brian and some others a PM. I'd be happy to play, but I probably cant manage more than two games at once. I'lll send you a message at that adress if I either dont get the games I currently have starting up off the ground, or once they're finished. Fair? Also, I am very happy to hear you enjoyed my AARs, thank you!

I cant edit my original post, so I'll make an addenum. One turn per 48 hours is meant as my own "fastest" limit, I cant do faster than that most of the time. So longer intervals is all good on my part, it's supposed to be fun and relaxing, not a time pressure thing after all .

I'm up for a game. Time intervals for posting turns: At least once every 48 hours (it will likely be quickler in many cases, but sometimes the extended deadline is good) Skill Level: Beginner, I know the basics, but not a lot of advanced strategy.

That is a pretty big problem IMO, the ports dont (as far as I know, correct me if I'm wrong ) prove an land supply. Perhaps the malta event should only target the land resources?

In theory, I guess bombing it very heavily with several Strategic bombers and tactical bombers (making sure to reduce entrenchment and the supply value of malta over a couple of turns so that the unit cant be rebuilt fully and ultimately destroyed by three or so tactical bombers) and then paradropping onto the empty square once the unit is bombed to death might work

Given the last two responses, I feel I might need to clarify the goal here. Goal 1; -Allow- the basic historical conditions to be modelled as closely as possible, with "conditions" I mean number of troops, strength, disparity in doctrines (tech and stats). -Allow- in this instance means that among other choices, one can make a -choice- to build a lot of troops and tanks (in this instance despite them being fairly bad) and achieve a historical setup. Of course, other choices will lead to other situations, but the -possibility- of modelling the historical situation should be there. Conversely, it would be bad if a historical wargame allowed no way whatsoever to model the historical situation even if the player actively tried to do so. Goal 2; Set up a situation with several choices to make, preferably hard choices. Choices like "what do I prioritize? Do I try to defend both groups of key cities close to the border by building a lot of troops and tanks, then try to fall back without loosing too much? Do I defend one group of cities very strongly, and try to hold paris with the help of a lot of brits? Conversely, a wargame that allows more or less only one clear "way" to go about things, or where you can really do everything and not have to make choices at all, in a particular campaign would be bad. For example "just build every anti tank unit and inf unit possible, set up along a river slightly forward of Paris, then fall back and hold paris" would be bad (not saying this is definetly the case here, there are choices to make, but making them harder, and giving more choices would be good). Goal 3; If the germans do very well, no matter how they go about it in meeting the defense and strategy chosen by the french, a conquest should at least be possible in four turns. The "four turns" isnt something mandated by the game or the engine (as some of you seem to have believed), it's a goal to strive for and something a very successful german attack could achieve. A brilliant defense, bad luck or bad play or strategy by the germans would of course prolong this. This is also where the choices come in, if the germans fail to meet the strategy chosen by the french (whatever that is, historical or not) it will of course also be impossible to win quickly. Conversely, it would be bad if it was -never- even remotely possible to achieve a great victory comparative to the historical outcome, no matter how well you do. This is more or less the case currently. Any modifications and changes that would help in attaining these three goals would be good. I would personally love to see three french light tank groups at low strength for example, balanced out in other ways to make sure that all of the "goals" above are met. More choices is a good thing!

I would love to see your sources for this. But, even if this is entirely accurate, as someone said before me only a very small number of these tanks were available. As if that wasnt enough the tech levels in the SC games do not seem to represent only the actual hardware used, but also to some extent doctrine, communications equipment and other components of the "whole" that is the general effectiveness of that nations armed forces (or infantry forces, in the "infantry tech" category). Given this, the prevalence of highly teched Soviet armor is very odd. The numbers speak a clear language regarding whose armor was superior. Basically; http://chris-intel-corner.blogspot.se/2013/01/tank-strength-and-losses-eastern-front.html Everything is on this page, gathering information from many sources. In summary, the german armor was ludicrously outnumbered throughout the entire war on the eastern front and the soviets still lost ten times as many tanks in 41, five times as many in 42, three times as many in 43 and about 2.5 times the number in 44. The supposed technological superiority of the T-34 is also largely theoretical, this page debunks that myth very thoroughly; http://chris-intel-corner.blogspot.gr/2012/07/wwii-myths-t-34-best-tank-of-war.html Also, (considering the above) the Germans had a tank that outmatched the T-34 already by the summer of 1942, the long barreled PIV. It's pretty strange that the soviets can maintain tech parity with the germans in most of these scenarios early on, not to mention tech superiority. From the statistics I've presented, it would be much more reasonable to make sure that soviet armor is very cheap (effectively representing two or three "armor groups" for every one of the german armor groups) but clearly inferior in combat values even with tech to make up for the numerical advantage. In this particular game I suspect that it has to do with italy getting france, but even had that not happened I suspect that the germans would only have had parity in tank tech, not an advantage.

Of course I agree completely with the "what if" philosophy, though I think that the scenario should (if the players want to do it that way and things in the game should happen to play out just like in history) be capable of modeling those historical circumstances very closely. I like the idea of the unupgradeable light tanks. That could be the two "starting" tanks, with the option to build one that can be upgraded, and of course getting the one deployed in May for that counter attack against the german invaders! This increase in capability of the french would have to be offset by something else, likely the other stuff we're discussing about french surrender and NM.

Yeah, I agree about the quality of the french hardware. I was looking at it out of the context of SC, which seems to model "force projection" of different types of formations rather than actual statistics. French "force projection" with all of their tanks was horribly bad, with the sole exception of the Stonne battle. I'm a really big fan of having to make hard choices, which is why I advocate a model for france that gives you several options on how to defend it, but still allows a 4 turn conquest if the germans do very well. How about this, as an historical compromise regarding the tanks; The french start with two tank groups at str 5 or so (an issue of balance how high the strength is, will probably have to be tweaked around) and their basic stats are just horribly bad (probably worse than they are now). This gives the french player a choice; Do I spend my MPP before the invasion on strengthening the tanks and upgrading hvy tanks 1? That would make them still mediocre, but somewhat more effective. Perhaps they even have the option of building a third group. The one that arrives in june around paris would still be upgraded, and perhaps str 8 or so, ready for the "counter attack" at stonne.

Hey Bill, thanks for taking note I took the liberty of digging a little online for sources on the matter. It seems that larger scale ambphibious invasions have largely fallen out of style and are not advised in any form in the modern military, but here are some WWII related sources; http://www.physicstoday.org/resource/1/phtoad/v64/i9/p35_s1?bypassSSO=1 ("The normandy beaches") http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/invsicily.htm "examination also pointed out that a southerly wind of any appreciable force, strengthened in the afternoon by the sea breeze, would produce dangerous landing conditions and an untenable anchorage for the force offshore." "During this critical period while the invasion force was completely exposed to the NW wind, considerable apprehension was felt in various quarters concerning the success of the operation." ""The strategic and tactical importance of weather forecasts cannot be overemphasized."" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normandy_landings#Weather "conditions were clearly unsuitable for a landing; wind and high seas would make it impossible to launch landing craft from larger ships at sea, and low clouds would prevent aircraft finding their targets. The Allied troop convoys already at sea were forced to take shelter in bays and inlets on the south coast of Britain for the night." Basically it seems to boil down to this; Both the tide and the weather is extremely important. In part this is due to the need for aircraft to cover the extremely exposed "landing phase" of the invasion, but mainly it has to do with the actual logistics of the operation. Storms and bad weather seems to make it impossible to disembark the landing craft from the larger ships. The invasion itself isnt a continous stream of ships seamlessly floating ashore but one of fits and starts. One "line" is driven ashore while a large mass off ambhib vessels wait in the waters offshore for their turn to disembark. In bad weather, this mass of vessels would be devestated, both en route to the offshore assembly area and the risk of being lost, driven away from the group, capzised, thrown overboard or hit by other vessels with the same result, and once assembled. The closest comparison would be to try to jam 30 small boats together in a large swimming pool and not have half of them go under with men drowning and being hit by other boats when the wave machine is on. This is not to mention that the men actually getting ashore would be seasick and suffering from everything from basic exhaustion to hypothermia and basically useless in the face of any defenders. Add to this the extreme difficulties of getting any heavier equipment or supply ashore in such conditions, given that the turns in SC represent two weeks to a month. While it might in theory be possible to do (I havent found any sources describing landings in bad weather unfortunately), in reality no commander would ever risk loosing very large amounts of their forces and being crushed in detail by any defenders due to absolute deterioration of combat capabilities once ashore. A good starting point for a discussion? Edit; Two suggestions for in game models/solutions; 1. Simply making it impossible to ambhibiously disembark from a tile with rough seas or into a tile with rough weather. 2. Creating very large penalties for any such landing, heavily increased landing losses (as much as 5-6 steps losses per unit given that the basic losses also represent defending shore elements too small to be represented as units in the game) and severe morale/readiness penalties once ashore. Basically to the point where any sort of counter attack in the two turns or so following the landing would mean the destruction of the landing forces.

The allies stumble backwards, trying to escape encirclement. Meanwhile Huntzinger commands an armor group just assembled outside of paris (3e division cuirasse de reserve) to counterattack the german spearhead, and a fierce three day battle ensues with the german 10th armor group. The British, fearing the total destruction of the B.E.F start withdrawing to the coast. The Germans close the pocket, and destroy most of the french army in the field. Forces have begun encircling the Maginot line, and Army group C is hammering the defenders. The French start retreating from the Maginot Line in confusion after reports of germans to their rear, the northern pocket tries to disentagle, but are trapped. Lord gort and what little of the british heavy equipment remains start evacuating. "Fall Rot" is executed, the southern thrust from the northern encirclement line takes paris. The French army is more or less a non entity. However, the french do not surrender, and moves their capital to Bordeaux. The british, trapped at Dunkerque fear destruction from the surrounding german forces, but escape by fishing skiffs due to axis indecision. The French army continues a mass retreat towards central france and Bordeaux. Not shown on the pictures are the italians that attacked a couple of turns ago and have been stuck fighting a French army. Their land gains are negligible. The germans destroy the few remains of the french army, and france surrenders on the 26th of July. I did not include this last screenshot as it would mean another post ^^ Thoughts and impressions I tried this a couple of times, and the results were always the same (I tried the "attack the gap immediately in May and then move the allies into belgium anyway" twice, once the french surrendered on july 10th after paris falling July 5th, and once they held on to the 26th anyway. However, that variant necessitates largely ignoring the northern pocket and going straight for Paris, and also ignores the "flow of events" to an extent I am not really comfortable with. Sequence of events; Axis turn 1 (may 3rd, historical); Belgium, Netherlands, Luxemburg, Norway falls. Axis Turn 2; Allied force hit hard, encirclement and/or breakthrough begun. Axis turn 3; French forces 40% destroyed in total, encirclement and/or breakthrough complete Axis turn 4; Paris falls, Allied forces 60% destroyed, Brits mostly fled. This, I think, is as close as you can get both in the OOB's and the events within the engine and still be somewhat reasonable gameplay wise. Given this rough timeline and sequence (and with this I mean that even if the allies do not advance into belgium, the german player manages to destroy a lot of their army elsewhere and break through to take paris, forcing the evacuation of the B.E.F), no matter what the other circumstances are, it is not inappropriate that Paris falls and the French surrender on July 19th (turn 4) almost every time. The french should basically only hang on further if their army is more intact than say around 50% left and the British make a further commitment to stay in france with 4-5 units. This is, despite very large success from the axis, still a month later than in history but within more acceptable parameters. The result of four of my 5 games with a surrender the 26th of july is way too late given these "four step circumstances". ideally, if the french army has taken a beating, the british not present in force (two units) and paris falls on turn 3 of the invasion, they should still surrender. But turn 4 seems to be a reasonable compromise between gameplay and history. The Axis army has taken a crazy beating to achieve this "fast" four turn conquest of Paris. This despite me consciously choosing to "retreat without striking" in several instances with the allies. Historically, losses were about a third of the armored forces and 3% of the regular army. Most of the armored losses were the old Panzer II's, that were slated for scrapping anyway. Losses most of the time in the game is closer to 50-60% of the armored forces, and 15-25% of the regular army. This in part suggests that axis armor tech should probably be around lvl 2 for this invasion (the model for the lvl 2 tech is the panzer III, the main battle tank of the french campaign) but through lots of testing I have concluded that barring insane luck it is completely impossible to attain lvl 2 armor and upgrade it while maintaining an even close to historical OOB for the germans in time for the campaign. Edit; The current historical OOB for the germans presented here necessitated a two turn conquest of Poland, the "marching" of all units to the west (no operating) and fairly little research. Suggestions Several things spring to mind regarding this particular part of the war, and the war in general. One possibility is an adjustment of French national morale, giving the loss of forces and fall of paris, as well as the continued blitzkrieg more of an effect. Another is the adjustment of the Blitzkrieg NM events, forcing an active defense of these locations to prevent their fall and a guaranteed surrender if paris falls and the army is mostly destroyed. My ideal model would probably look something like this; An adjustment of french NM, the loss due to "blitzkrieg" events surrounding the capture of Lille/Maubeuge/sedan (group 1) and/or Metz/Verdun/Arras (group 2) and the approach to and capture of Paris adjusted so that in the end result the following is true; The French fight on at the end of any turn, either allied or axis if at least two of the following conditions are true; 1. The allies have successfully defended either group 1 or group 2 above (I'm not sure whether it is best to have this meaning that any of the cities in the group must still be held, or all of them. I think the latter would be very hard for the french, but perhaps not unreasonable. A matter of discussion?) 2. The French army is at more than 50% original strength 3. The British are present in force (4+ units) on the french mainland 4. Paris has not fallen This gives several alternatives for when the french can fight on and how to set up the defense of france, and also several ways to "break" them. With the above conditions, a "four turn conquest" should not be impossible. The numbers above are of course up for balancing and discussion. Two other things I have been thinking about is regarding french and german armor units. Perhaps france should start with two armor units (low str) and have the option of building one more. However, these armor units should be -really, really bad-. Probably even worse than now, and the french should not start with heavy armor 1. The french can still have the 3e division cuirasse de reserve arrive near paris under Huntzinger, but it should likely be str 5 or so (representing a single division). This would model both the allied actual numerical superiority in armor in the field (the british and french had a total of 3900 armored units and the germans only had 2700) but also their actual lacking ability to project that superiority as strength in the field. German armored units consistently took much lower losses than their counterparts throughout the war. Party this was due to experience and tactical knowledge, but the simple fact of the matter is that most german armor models were -better- than their allied counterparts. I'm thinking, for example, of the evolution of the Panzer III in 1940/41, the Panzer IV in 42/43, the panther in 44 and so on. This isnt quite represented through tech, as it seems the allies will be able to match the axis tech level most of the time. Perhaps german armor should have one higher defense value than the allied armor units? Not better in attack, but taking slightly less losses in general. This is a slightly unrelated thought though, and might be completely off base.

Me and my regular opponent will have played three games of SoE to the point where victory for one side was virtually ensured. I have a number of reflections and thoughts based on these games, and will be posting them. The first of these concerns the invasion of France in 1940. Will invaded in november, and I have tried invasions on the historical date twice. Despite the first "historical invasion" made in my first game as the axis being wildly successful (see the AAR SoE "return of the newbies") the early attack made by Will, and again in our third AAR on the historical date, France has never once surrendered earlier than late august/september and has always moved their capital rather than surrendering at the fall of Paris. As a baseline, I'll outline my own preferences. I believe that a benchmark of an historical wargame is that if events and actions in the game that follow actual historical events as closely as possible within the confines of the engine occur, then the historical results should follow at least most of the time. In a previous discussion with StrategicLayabout he pointed out that any reasonably competent allied player would do much better than history with france and I agree that given a good defense from a smart player, it should hold longer. To this effect though, something still felt off about France always surrendering so "late" from a historical viewpoint, and I decided to test the theory through a number of hotseat attempts at modelling what happened in history. I've also tried to set up conditions somewhat like in the game, for example there is no way the allied player would not spend all their MPP's with france building units (hence the AT units). Here is a walk through of one of them. Order of Battle - Allies A note, all orders of battle taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_battle_for_the_Battle_of_France (and the related page for the B.E.F linked to on this page) The first army group, containing the 1st, 2nd, 7th and 9th armies stand by the northeastern border of France, ready to advance ito Belgium and meet the germans. I had a little trouble modelling this correctly, as the allies had about a 1.5 to 1 advantage in armor, and an advantage of around 300 000 ínfantry at the start of Fall Gelb. Consequently, I built an armor unit for the British and the French. Though this still does not match the five groups fielded by the germans (more on them later) this could be abstracted as two of those five groups being just one or two divisions, and these two armor units representing the "effective arm" of the combined allied defense, with the rest of the armor spread ineffectively among the infantry. One more armor unit will arrive for the French, bringing the number to three and matching the main body of german armor (which is also three groups). It was impossible to build the armor unit with the hvy armor upgrade and still get it on time to the operation, and it has just been placed now prior to the operation. Working closely with General Bilotte and nominally under his command is the british B.E.F. The armor unit represents part of the combined allied armor forces, and the large mechanized elements of the British army. Another problem sprang up here, as the actual B.E.F army (represented on the map) was in fact comprised of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd corps. The 1st and 2nd corps arrive on the map though. I assumed that this represents mobile and reactive elements of the B.E.F proper that could move and react independently from and under the direction of the army and Lord Gort. I did not include a third corps, as at least one corps must remain "in the army" to make it an actual army formation. The B.E.F remains an "army" despite the detachment of at least parts of two corps because of the concentration of support formations there. The "token border defence" represents forces stationed along the borders and the rivers to prevent breakthroughs. as the Ardennes is "impassable" this is not a high priority sector, with the weight of the defense concentrated in the middle and southern parts of the Maginot Line and the Second and third army groups (comprising of four armies, 3rd, fourth, 5th and 8th). Order of Battle - Axis Army group A, under General Rundstedt and Kluge, is comprised of the main part of the German armored forces organized into three armor groups (XIV, XIX and XXXXI corps). These are upgraded fully, as they represent "full" armored corps. Also in army group A, 4th, 12th and 16th army. All upgraded as the main part of the thrust. Army group B, under Von Bock and his subordinate in the german 8th army Kuchler, has two armor corps on the map. In reality, these are comprised of a single armor division (bound for Netherlands) and two armor divisions (slated for belgium). This is represented here by a lack of upgrades. Also included are the Sixth and 18th armies, as well as a formation representing the various engineers and special forces operating with the army group to take fortresses and breach rivers, and the paratroopers who land on Eben Emael and in Rotterdam. Army Group C, a very weak army group intended to apply pressure on the Maginot line and pin it in place, is gathered in the south Under Von Leeb. The OKH reserve is represented with many corps, as well as the men manning the Siegfried line. Fall Gelb Note that parallel to this operation, on this turn (may 3rd) norway is also invaded and conquered in addition to Belgium, Netherlands and Luxemburg On the Ninth of May the operation starts. Army group B quickly defeats both the Netherlands and Belgium, taking the allies completely by surprise with the speed of their attack. Paratroopers land in Rotterdam (because they did in history ^^) and Eben Emael falls. Army group B occupies Luxemburg, but keeps the strength of their army in the back until the allies fall into the trap in Belgium. Army Group C moves to the Maginot Line, supported by artillery, and applies pressure to pin the 2nd and 3rd french army groups in place. (I debated the sequence of events here for some time. Given the time scale modelled in the game, the armored strike through the Ardennes would have to fall immediately on the invasion turn to stay remotely true to the "time table". However, in the end I decided that the "flow of events" was more important, the Germans would never strike before the allies had moved into Belgium, and moving them up right away just stretches suspension of disbelief a little too much in regards to the follow up actions by the allied player. I did try this later variant as well, with the result that france fell a turn earlier) The Allies, believing that the Main thrust of the German army is coming through belgium and secure on their right flank in the ardennes, advance into Belgium and battle the advance guard of the germans, taking heavy losses as the Germans advance. The "token defense" near the border of luxemburg is stripped of important assets. The germans punch through the Ardennes and obliterate the defense, starting to encircle the allies to the north. Army group B, originally meant as nothing but bait, enjoys unexpected and stunning successes against the french army in the Field. The allies are reeling.

Yeah... during the current turn it was demonstrated to me that ambhibious landings can be made in bad weather. That really bugs the hell out of me, seeing as it was pretty much impossible to pull off an ambhib landing in any sort of force in bad weather, which is why they called off D-Day once and almost again on the actual date. As it is, I spent around 600 Mpp in operating costs to have the luftwaffe grounded for the invasion, and bad weather penalties making counterattack with all my shiny elite 13 armor useless. The lynchpin plan of the defense was to hit his HQ with tac's as soon as he landed, and then fight him off in bad supply. That wont happen now, and if the bad weather continues he can basically sit there and build supply and more troops until he's good and ready. The natural consequence seems to be that you always want to do the invasion in as bad weather as possible, preferably around the winter months when you know there is going to be lots of rounds where the enemy cant counter attack you effectively or use his airforce. No need to ensure air superiority. Blech. I made a good long analysis of the defense of france sometime during 42, I still missed building engineers because I got distracted, but my final conclusion was that coastal defense is impossible. Too many towns and too much ground to cover, the enemy can always choose where to put down a heavy blow, and -will- take one or two towns at will with minimal losses. At best, you can try to fortify some of the major cities to limit supply potential, but the bottom line is that the enemy will get ashore in force, and have a HQ or two directly on coastal towns for supply. The only viable option then seems to be the counterattack (vis a vis rommel style D-Day response) but with landings possible in bad weather... Hm.

I'm so screwed, I'm so screwed... Allright, now that the obvious is out of the way, I thought a quick update as a "set up" for the longer update to come whenever I think it seems appropriate in the game might be in order. The WAllies landed in Sicily this turn, no idea why they did that, but I'll take it! Hopefully it means that the conquest of italy will take a good bit longer so that I can buy and build some meagre reinforcements. Especially since this; Yeah... lovely sight to see first thing in a turn. Considering that I had 30 or so land units built as the US and present in spain mid 43 in our game (with super tech) it may very well be that there are some 20+ americans just about to hit france. What do I have to counter? Yeah... after frantic operating and wasting most of this turns income, this. Impressive? Not particularly. Hopefully I can hit them before they get good supply and too many units ashore, if not... well. If not, hitler can shove his "not one step back" directive. Silly dictator... This may seem like a slight overreaction, but the truth is that if the Americans get ashore in france in force before the really bad weather hits it really is game over. Edit: It also occurred to me (just now in fact, way after the turn was sent) that this might be some Western allied Maskirovka. I have no idea how long that transport has been sitting there, he might just have left a transport or two in the english channel hoping to make me waste a lot moving things to france to counter. Gah... this game, the tension is giving me cardiac problems . I wish I had a heavy bomber to scout with, unfortunately it died in italy when he landed in Sicily (might be why he went for it?). Anyway, I'm fairly content with my moves anyway, as it's a pretty "do or die" situation. I have to defend, if it's a feint, so be it. :S So then, the stage for the end of 1943 seems to be set; Allies in Sicily, allies in the English channel looking to cross and possibly soon in France. USSR hitting me hard in the south of USSR where I am paper thin, and the germans on the retreat with severely inferior forces everywhere. The question is where the Axis will crumble first. Italy is given, but will we fall in the east... or the west?

Thanks . Good to know the thoughts behind the system!

Good info! So, 6% at 6 supply then is about normal. Wow, that does make it take a lot of time to get morale back if you're not at perfect supply ^^. Is the gain affected much by commanders/current readiness? And yeah, i realized that was how it worked with rebuilding/supply of HQ's, I just thought it might be more logical to have a "minimum cap" on supply for the HQ unit at the supply value of the tile it's in, meaning that a HQ standing on a tile with 8 supply could still rebuilt fully even if it's at 5 strength. Just to make it more in line with how all the other units work ^^

Allright, the actual update then. In the planning for the summer of 43' I made one more mistake. I decided to play for the very slim outside chance of a win rather than comitting fully to playing for a draw. The previous pictures have shown the buildup for the main event, my bid to take smolensk during 1943 and then push on to Moscow at opportunity. I should have started a slow withdrawal, forcing the soviets into bad supply where I could constantly destroy units while preserving my own and building more forces for the inevitable invasion of the west. It didnt quite happen that way. Now I realized a couple of things during the winter. One was that Russia had a bigger income than all of germany and all her conquests, the other was that readiness, supply and morale is damned difficult to manage, and that morale definitely didnt rise in the way I had hoped. To remedy these things I planned the invasion of several minors, using as little resources as at all possible. After long debate and looking at the map with terrain and distance, I forewent the invasion of Spain. Too time consuming, too costly. Too much risk of allied intevention. No, I wanted easy one turn conquests. Using rebuilt units that had to be placed in Germany and operated to USSR anyway, I quickly took both Vichy and Switzerland in may or april (cant quite remember). some loot, but most importantly a much needed boost to morale. The summer kicked off with fierce fighting over Smolensk. I lost some four or five armies/special forces, and the soviets lost... a LOT more, Despite this, I simply could not make any actual gains. Supply was too hard to come by, and the Soviets too numerous. Now in september, the USSR has lost fully three times as many land units as germany, and no less than sixteen or seventeen tank armies, with only one lost for germany. It's staggering that they can replace those losses, and still come back for more. I couldnt even replace the lost armies for several months, needing to restrengthen, upgrade and redeploy. The soviets did all of these, and still rebuilt pretty much everything I think. I think the OKW and Hitler must have shared my disbelief, flabbergasted at Russian resilience in the face of such horrendous losses. I come to the conclusion that any war in russia must target the russian income above all. Destroying the army is just a nice perk. With Kuchler and heeresgruppe sud pushed back into Romania, the USSR has gone for a thrust along the southern pripyat valley and towards poland. I've been hard pressed to hold this off, and the newly rebuilt rommel was in very hot water for a while. In september, this is the current situation in USSR. In the very south, Kuchlers backhand blow is ongoing (a year too early and the wrong commander, but meh!). I've spotted at least three armor units near Poland, so I figured the odessa position must be at least a little weak with all the units I've seen in the far north and around Smolensk. We'll see what happens. On the polish border, rommel is slowly gathering forces to repel the red tide, more forces are moving to reinforce his position, and part of the luftwaffe is flying back as well. Note the careful placement of the CAS in supplied towns to operate them if the need arises... In the central northern position Mannstein, Kesselring and Leeb have started a slow withdrawal. Rundstedt stands northwards, having repelled a thrust of two tankovy armies with two panzer corps, destroyed them, and then overseeing the strenthening of the panzers again (they were both down to 10 from their elite steps, and had to be rebuilt. Gotta preserve that edge!). The finns have fallen back to dig in at leningrad, hopefully that will buy me a little time. The italians held on in NA until late july, and then collapsed. I have withdrawn and rebuilt as much as possible. After a sneaky invasion of Greece (part of that economic buildup plan I jabbered on about earlier) the italian navy returned to the boot of Italy. Heavy bombers have spotted a concentration of allied naval vessels close to Cicily, which worries me. There are two paths of attack for will, either into Italy, or into southern france. I'll try to keep an eye on that naval concentration and see which it is. Still, if he goes for italy, he'll likely go for Rome directly. The SC mechanics favor lightning strikes on the capitals. I've concentrated my defenses around Rome, hoping to hold off the invasion for a turn or two once it comes. Enough time for the CAS to operate in and give the allies plenty of pain. I also hold naples with a strong army, if he lands further south to build supply. Another thing I realized I forgot is to build any sort of engineers and fortifications in the west or in Italy. Heh. Doh. Here is a shot of the world map, I really love the size of the SoE campaign map. The scale seems just right, and makes the terrain varied and interesting. it's clear that I've lost the initiative and any chance of winning is probably out the window as well. The russians alone could likely beat the Axis at this point with their insane ability to rebuild even losses like the ones they have been taking, and still keep pace in tech and come back even stronger. going for the long shot in 43 have made the coming years that much harder. I guess the game will be a valuable practice in defensive retreats. I'm not going to give Will the victory easily, if he wants anything but a draw he'll have to pry it out of my dead cold hands... ^^

I havent been posting much, but thought I'd give a summary of events so far since the last update from my perspective. First though, I'd like to share something I thought was slightly odd, vis a vis the recovery of morale. These are three pictures of the fifth army in Russia. As we can see, it has great readiness, good supply and is under the command of Mannstein. However, it's morale is only at 23%, and has been very low for some time. Now over the coming turns it barely improved at all; It feels a bit weird that it would improve so very slowly under close to optimal conditions. Is morale intended to move so slowly, or is there something strange going on? Another thing I was pondering is the rebuilding of damaged HQ's. If the HQ itself is damaged, it doesnt matter if it's on a "good supply" tile, the HQ itself (while standing on a supply 7 tile for example) is only in five supply for example, and thus cannot be rebuilt fully. Wouldnt it be more logical if the HQ as a unit had a minimum supply of the tile supply value? Anyway. One other effect of these pictures is to show the buildup before the battle of Smolensk, that pretty much went on for most of the summer.

Hm. I'm pondering going after Vichy france and Spain in 43. Right now I'm earning less MPP's than USSR, and that isnt good. I'm not quite sure of the ramifications, or if I can even do it though.

Btw, before I get that far. Does soviet winter strike every year, or are the germans better prepared after 41? If so, when exactly does it strike? I'd rather not have all my painstakingly preserved and built elite steps killed by weather

About the game then. The summer of 1942 has indeed been quite painful, but not without more or less significant successes either. This is pretty much the axis low point, july 1942. I've conducted strategic retreats fron the gates of Leningrad to Pskov and behind the river. In the picture you can see two paratroopers positioned for a planned Leningrad gambit. Pushed back all the way to Minsk in the middle, and having lost Tartu and everything about Pskov. This is also the turning point, prepared positions with artillery and a river blunted a heavy soviet blow from the north, and two tank groups took serious losses without breaking through. There has been fighting for months, and I have mostly come out on top because of one thing; the careful husbanding of my one advantage, elite armor groups. By making sure these are not unduly exposed, that they are in supply and with good readiness, and built up elite steps before they strike and then only at enemies in low readiness/morale, they have decimated wills units with very few losses. This of course has meant moving forward slower than I would like, but I have realized that rushing ahead and getting all of your units into poor readiness and supply is nothing but a recipe for disaster anyway, so slow it is. These pictures are from September, in the middle of the axis counter attack. A hail mary paratroop drop (from the positions you saw earlier) took leningrad, and finland joined. I basically aimed for the square i could reach next to leningrad that didnt hold the fortification built last (the one next to kronstadt) and prayed that the city would be ungarrisoned. It was. Big whoop! ^^ As you can see from these pictures, it became necessary to expose my armor, and some of it has been badly hit. I still try to take the time to replace their losses into elites, I -must- maintain that advantage. Mannsteins army group would chase the withdrawing soviets up to and around Luga, before I realised that chasing the soviets through that swamp would take both winter and spring and leave me entirely out of supply, readiness and time. A bad idea then. The army group has instead (as of october) redirected towards the central northern front, I hope to reach smolensk before spring and then use that as a springboard to reach Moscow in 43. In the south, I have retreated further as far as odessa and the river there. Hopefully, bad weather will stall the soviets in the south until reinforcements arrive. I have lost a few units (some 5 of worth) in the south here, but the soviets have lost some too. In NA, the italians finally quit in late september, after stalling the brits heroically for over a year. I am very proud of them. However, it now seems unlikely that they will escape through the damaged harbors. A mistake on my side. On the other hand, the Regia Marina has savaged the British RN, and are giving the americans a decent enough fight. They may just escape yet! Finally, these are the losses so far; Note the rediculous amount of armor the soviets have lost. And yet they keep replacing them...

I found a bug and now it can be fixed! Yay! Good thoughts in general, as usual, though I'm pondering how I could have focused more. I had pretty much 90% of my forces in USSR (bar some of those derped away units around italy, i never did get around to sending any units to NA) and my main thurst was definitely north, with a smaller thrust south. It's true that I lost MPP's from bombing, but I dont see any way of stopping that really, bar keeping most of the luftwaffe in france. I do have one idea, but that will have to wait until another game. perhaps I could have given up completely on the atlantic war, but that just feels... wrong somehow. So supply/morale/readiness takes longer in Russia than anywhere else? About the intel thing: I respectfully disagree. I'll write a more detailed explanation after the game, but I do not believe that the axis can ever implement this strategy in a way that gives them anything but an "even steven" game against the US, which really doesnt give them much at all.

Hm. Not really sure what to say of the situation of the game. It's now may 1942. Barbarossa failed decisively, unable to achieve neither significant land gains (anywhere even close to historical lines) nor the destruction of units to a value that exceeded soviet income. The Soviet are now crazy strong, with equivalent tech in both armor and infantry (3/2). I think the american int gambit is responsible for that, it's the only reason i can think of since I've had a continous investment in both since 1940. The winter hit me hard, damaging lots of Hq's and thereby hampering both supply and ability to rebuild the equally damaged troops around them. I still have units sitting in good supply with good HQ management who stubbornly court the 30-40 scale of morale. The soviet offensive is in full swing, and I scramble backwards trying to gather my forces to hold them off. It's all I can do with my income to rebuild my lost str, I cant even think of building new units. Finland never joined, despite me being at the gates of Narva and Leningrad at one point. What are the requirements for Finland joining? The U-boat war has picked up a bit since I hit lvl 2 subs, raiding and cat and mouse games are going on pretty much everywhere. I get hit and loose str, I think one will sink next turn, but I cause mischief. I had to make one of those hard decisions this turn. Due to a serial combination of mismanagement, winter damage (and therefore loss of supply), partisans (bastards cut the rail and lowered supply) and other stuff the tank group that has been slated for africa since november 1941 never got operated to italy. Rommel and a special forces have been sitting in transports waiting. A serious mistake on my part. I feel that my window to do something i NA is closing. I have been holding off the brits through a series of gambits with supply, hitting the supply with heavy bombers and the HQ's with tac's. But it cant last. Even if I get the armor there now and manage to push a bit at the brits, it will take too long and the americans can show up and end it. It's a damned shame, I really tried to go for NA this time with the italians, but screwing up elsewhere made it not work. Oh well. I've decided to send rommel to russia and I'll try to take greece in combination with my long prepared "crossing gambit" when I try to extract the italians. I'll let them try and hold the Brits a little while longer. Here are some screenies that show how bad my situation is. The Siberians arrived, and I think the soviets now have around 60 units total and I have around 70, many of which are not in the USSR. Given tech parity, Siberian elite reinforcements, and my own stubbornly low morale on the troops I foresee a summer of pain coming. If I am lucky, perhaps I can pull a fast one to destroy units and get a counter offensive going. Depending on what happens now, this will decide if I am effectively dead or not. Let the games begin!

Strength ten in all cases. This is the "projected supply" view.