Terif vs Liam: Defense from Allied Scourges

[Liam]

Started a typical Fall Weiss 1939 Scenario:

I tried Axis vs the Terif-ic Allied Giant. Crushed France early, well planned out, relatively... Poland-Benelux-Denmark, like usual within first few turns...

Allies took Norway like Normal.

Moving onward, I captured Vichy and Spain as the British had placed Diplo chits on Spain forcing me to either buy Franco out or kill him... So I proceeded to take Vichy in order to find a pathway to invade. Spain, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco fell in short order... and then Egypt, after this Axis forces planned an invasion of Sweden

1941: Amphibious Assualt Craft prepare to embark for Sweden, the Axis figured they'd get White Flags like usual and just camp their for the Summer in the local brothels. However the British had another plan, concealed in Norway was the RAF, which struck out on Copenhagen Port destroying it's defeneses and allowing access for the Royal navy. Amphibious Landing Craft were attacked by Crack Elite Swordfish in Port some of them, barely having time to put on their undershorts!

Despite this setback, and the loss of over 100,000 German soldats at the Bottom of the Baltic Sea, a Great Mourning, greater than all the deaths up until this point in the War... Orders went out by the Chancellor himself to Sink this abomination. UK Carrier Fleets were all directly attacked and sunk!!! Retaliatory strikes on the UK Surface Navy were not quite as successful but regardless performed.

This is the quietest opening I've ever seen from Terif, I have to be a bit cautious as to what to expect next. God Knows what weapons he has up that sleeve of his! See if I can send him a few myself :eek:

Mid 1941---------

[Liam]

To follow up into 1941

The Axis threatened England after the Destruction of the Axis Navy as the entire Royal Navy moved into place to destroy the Kriegsmarine and was locked in the Baltic, but with the RAF so close to Copenhagen, the Axis cannot risk the redeployment of the RN and the unknown strength of the RAF & British Army.

Also instead of the Germans taking Sweden the British got their first now since they have Naval Domination. USSR saw the opportunity and joined and invaded Finland and occuppied Stockholm, this was in a pact between Stalin and Churchill, the trade off of Sweden and Finland for the Russians.

The Germans are powerless to save their Northern allies, but move into position to attack Syria and take it, along with Iraq. The USA still doesn't join because of the Diplomatic hit by the Allied DOW on a Neutral PeaceLoving Sweden but were quite angry over Syria! Iraq joins the Axis...

Typically Terif has dictated the Speed of this game. the Axis get to invade the USSR, but Hungary did not Join as I did not DOW the USSR... SO Romania and Bulgaria are just now collecting up fully on MPPs... He has so far won the war of manuevers and obviously I will have to re-examine my strategy to get the upperhand as Axis vs Terif.

We'll see if we can take the iniative now vs the dreadful Russians & British as Winter closes and the USA will now join. It is difficult to dictate to the Master the playing field. Which is half the battle in Strategic Command 2 I am finding. I am only reacting as this point so early, and that shows Terif's Brilliance his ability to forecast, dictate and then take the iniative away from you.

Fun though this is the only player that can do this to me with such ease

[Terif]

Reason for the quiet opening was a severe lack of ground units and tech on the allied side – as they opted for an extensive Heavy Bomber Strategy

Germany had a huge edge in combat techs at Barbarossa (IW 3 / AT2 vs 1/0)...lasting more than a year...Russia despite 5 chits in IW and 1 (after Motor fired 2) chits in AT was only able to get IW 1 AT 0...which didn´t improve till September 1942 !!

Nevertheless this didn´t concern russian high command: if you have no tech, simply don´t try to counterattack but instead act and build accordingly and such a tech difference doesn´t really matter

So Russia bought mainly tanks and bombers while its cheap corps took the inevitable beatings from german air and ground forces... the russian defence line at Sevastopol-Kharkov was well fortified and so the entrenched russian tanks destroyed any axis intruder riskless from their fortifications and corps closed the gaps immediately.

In summer 1942 the line was under heavy attacks, so western Allies decided to sacrifice a few brave volunteers by launching a commando raid for relief: Hamburg, Essen, german mine and Frankfurt as well as Konigsberg (via amphib from Sweden) get occupied and german units forced to operate west...giving Russia the necessary break to overhaul their defences.

Meanwhile russian forces conquered Iraq and approached Egypt - Axis preemptively declared war to Syria + Iran, Iraq joined them. At Alexandria Axis built up a strong fortification to defend this key position, using italian surface ships to block Suez canal. Here russian bombers came into play: sinking/heavily damaging a ship every second turn...while 2 fighters from each side fought deadly airbattles above the desert...

But lastly the war was won quietly in the bomb factories of the west...producing millions of bombs, later droped down on Axis cities all over Europe by 6 allied Bomber squadrons. All in all Allies built 8 bombers: 4 USA, 2 UK and 2 Russia...also researching Heavy Bomber techs (USA Lv 4, UK Lv 2).

So since summer 1942 each turn every axis city and mine in France, Denmark, western Germany, along the Baltic and Spain got leveled down to zero...causing a loss of about 160 mpps/turn...Germany receiving less than 300 mpps and beeing barely able to keep its air flying, not to mention feeding its ground forces .

In the end, Germany had been starved to death by allied bombers and the war won without a real shot fired in Russia...only light skirmishes after Germany retreated most of its forces into newly built fortifications to save ressources...light western allied forces meet no real resistance when cutting off Spain and after Italy lost another cruiser in Suez canal and russian tanks moved in...killing one of the now 3 defending airfleets with the help of some Paratrooper...revolution of uncontent citizens swept away the Axis leadership.

In this last attack Russia discovered advanced german airplanes with Jets 2 and LR 4 grounded in the desert due to lack of fuel and spare parts...german scientists and captured planes got transfered to russian research centers immediately to analyze and copy these wonder weapons...fortunately the enemy had not enough ressources to produce them en mass, therefore the few available ones had no influence on the outcome of the war...

And so in February 1943 - before the allied bombers could have taken off again to wreak havoc amongst the european cities – Axis surrendered unconditionally. A very unbloody war on the ground...only 11 russian land units destroyed vs 23 axis ones...a pure bombing campaign war where the bombers won the war on their own .

War photographies:

August 1942 and Russia still defending with IW 1 AT 0 vs german IW 3, AT 2 forces – but in defence, tech doesn´t really matter...and Axis still didn´t come very far:

Much different picture in 1943 – Russian defence line now strong and ready to strike the next summer:

Russian forces also present with 2 bombers in the desert, sieging Egypt when the war ended after their breach into the enemy lines during this turn:

End of the war:

Few allied ground troops in France, but covered by large air formations and 6 bombers:

[ June 01, 2007, 05:21 AM: Message edited by: Terif ]

[Blashy]

Finally I was waiting for the day someone would use this strategy.

Since the bombers have been dropped down to the same price as air fleets it is now possible to do a heavy bomber strategy and kill 150+ mpps to Axis per turn. But if an Axis player has AA at a decent level, the Allies get a nasty surprise, because just AA level 2 can hurt bombers heavily, but you have to gamble investing in it or not.

The only I have noticed from many AAR is how so many Axis players leave North Western German cities/ports empty. I just don't get that one...

[Terif]

Axis had AA here - but Axis can even have AA level 5 and it doesn´t really help them if Allies know how to use their bombers .

Only in the first strike the bombers take real losses - if a ressource is at low strength, then it does no harm to an attacker (except the usual average 0.33 points). That´s why bomber strategy is always possible and certainly no gamble .

Bomber strategy is a long term strategy so only few players do it - wasn´t the first time I used it as I prefer long term strategies, only the first AAR about it .

[Terif]

Leaving certain cities/spots empty - yep, here you have a point...

...but on the other side Axis simply don´t have enough units to cover every possible landing/drop site if they also want to conquer new territories and Allies know what they are doing...so it is usually a cat and mouse game to protect the right spots and to make the enemy pay a high price if he takes empty cities.

Allies are far superior in production and numbers, but Axis have the advantage of the inner line and can shift forces fast from one front to another to achieve local superiority - that´s the challenge Axis have to master in order to win the war .

So in the end: Axis have no realistic other choice than to leave some cities/places empty, but they shouldn´t be the wrong ones in the particular situation :cool: .

[Blashy]

A level 5 AA if memory serves me right since I tested this long ago but if you hit a city with AA L5 that bomber can be destroyed completely.

But getting there is the hard part and Axis have no mpps to spare, more useful somewhere else.

This is why I would like AA to affect all bombers attacking a city. I don't think those AA guns would go into hiding after one raid.

[Terif]

If you got thrown a few thousand bombs on your head, I think you also would go into hiding...or more likely be destroyed .

And if a city is leveled to zero, that means it is more or less destroyed completely and so most of its AA guns. They first have to be rebuilt before they are effective again - which is even more realistic and also better for the game cause otherwise Bombers wouldn´t work.

[Liam]

Actually Terif is partially right, the entire campaign in Russia or Western Europe was not lost due to Bombers. However the MiddleEast with it's measly 5mpp support of supply was!!! Plus the Battle for the Sinai however, I was alost outnumbered 3 to 1 on that front so it was #s not Bombers and logistics not MPPs that caused the end of the Game. I got real lucky with tech, and the Russians did not but they converted into Tanks and other weapons and avoided fighting the Axis on the Ground instead using Rivers and Forts wisely where they did not need to attack, Plus they had Tanks to counter.

I will say this, if the Allied had more time, which they did not I would have surrendered because France-Spain and Germany would have all fallen due to Superior Allied #s... The Russians were outproducing me without the Western Allies but they needed time which Terif bought them with all sorts of Painful Commando resource disruption raiding, Bombing Raids. There was no Kriegsmarine either, so I had no way to prevent unlimited Recon nor strike back at the weakened Allied Navys. Terif played superbly, and he held back I noticed to practice on me with his Bombers and Strategic Attacks but it was not the gamebreaker, it was my errors that gave him the strategic, tactical and situational advance to take this game at least by late '44 I surrendered about a year early. Excellently played Allies!!! And those American Bombers were HELL

[Liam]

Terif, a question to you. I have a habit, and I think you noticed of overoperating, overgarissoning and overdoing certian manuevers. I think it's an old SC1 habit I just can't kill in SC2. And my Axis really stink. I mean against any player but you, this Axis would've probably won, as Russia couldn't hold unless in the hands of a Great Player who knows how to use the terrain which you do. Though I overextend my Axis with you... and I do not understand the meaning of focused Firepower. I suppose I am just too fearful of losing something somewhere else and lose the flexability that some players possess, or is it that I'm just too short of MPPs due to operating and too short of Units?

Originally posted by Terif:

Leaving certain cities/spots empty - yep, here you have a point...

...but on the other side Axis simply don´t have enough units to cover every possible landing/drop site if they also want to conquer new territories and Allies know what they are doing...so it is usually a cat and mouse game to protect the right spots and to make the enemy pay a high price if he takes empty cities.

Allies are far superior in production and numbers, but Axis have the advantage of the inner line and can shift forces fast from one front to another to achieve local superiority - that´s the challenge Axis have to master in order to win the war .

So in the end: Axis have no realistic other choice than to leave some cities/places empty, but they shouldn´t be the wrong ones in the particular situation :cool: .

[Terif]

@Liam:

Yep, too much operating/transporting costs you a lot of mpps. But main mistake is not to recognize where/when to attack and where/when to defend :

- you usually try to go with the head through the wall, meaning attacking my fortress near Sevastopol behind the river and the mines. This is the perfect defence position and you can only get a bloody nose there...better to attack the weak spots of an enemy defence line and not the hardest and best defended point

- Iraq is a good example for the defence part...my russians were approaching with 6 tanks, air and lots of smaller stuff. Nevertheless you operated your HQ with a few armies and corps to Baghdad just to get half of them killed by the 4:1 superior russians and having to operate the survivors away again... Better to not defend it at all as there were no chance to hold it and every try was destined to fail with high casualties as it is a pretty bad terrain for defence in the open desert.

Choose the right spots for defence. Alexandria was a much better place, nevertheless never place your air in the second defence row as the first one will always be killed by an enemy attack and then the air will be overrun. Especially as you had seen my 2 Paratroopers near Amman before they prepared for jump. In any case always be ready to give up a defence position that is about to fall. Loosing Egypt (or a few units) is not the end of the game, in contrary...Axis have lots of more desert to give up if necessary and can even get over loosing Africa if you use your forces somewhere else (e.g. Russia) to conquer other territories as compensation. Axis will never be able to hold everything against an able Allied player, so don´t expect them to and don´t be afraid to sacrifice expendable terrain. Be ready to retreat from positions you can not hold or where the enemy achieved a breakthrough and to build up a new defence position at a better place.

[ebitt]

Better to not defend it at all as there were no chance to hold it and every try was destined to fail with high casualties as it is a pretty bad terrain for defence in the open desert.

Righteous words!

Petty geniuses attempt to hold everything; wise men hold fast to the key points.

Frederick the Great: Instructions for His Generals, vii, 1747

[Blashy]

My train of thought is Africa and Middle east should have one unit at key points for the Axis and if the enemy starts plowing through, let him.

I think Holding Central Europe and a continued progression in Russia is more important.

The key is always Russia, the more you progress means at least a 15mpp increase in favor of Axis, you take a city allies loose 10mpps and eventually gain 5mpps = 15 mpp gain.

I am sure Terif is much more thorough about all the benefits of going here or there.

But I think if people are not going to go as deep as Terif has, stick to the basics. You have to keep making progress in Russia, if you do not you will loose. So find the weak spots and move forward.

[Liam]

Blashy, correct, taking Eastern Europe into the Heart of Russia is vital. If she's never threatened unless the Germans have done something else she'll become unstoppable.