Europe only '39 game

[Yoper]

Started a game last Friday and I have already jacked up the Allied cause.

I am the UK/US and Dan is the France/USSR combo.  He had to leave early and I didn't take the time to properly analyze the French position before hand.  Suffice it to say, I allowed the Germans to just walk into Paris relatively unmolested. 

Talk about being rusty!  I was definitely not on top of the tactical situation on the continent. 

Trying to take care of Egypt and the Home Isles had me working some serious tunnel vision and not paying attention to the French troubles.  Well, we will see how the Germans (Eric) are able to capitalize on that blunder.

Now I have to actually email Dan and break the bad news.

[John D.]

Well - now Dan has someone to blame

[Yoper]

I am always the one to blame.  I just don't usually give them this big or blatant a reason to despise me.

Normally, it is just my "second rate" play that distinguishes me from the others.

[John D.]

Well - you can't put a price on good sportsmanship!

[Yoper]

Well - you can't put a price on good sportsmanship!

Nor the chance to heckle Mark

[Yoper]

We finally got back to playing this last Friday.

I am now the supreme commander of all things Allied.

On the UK front I felt that I was able to early on get the proper amount of units into the Middle East to stabilize my position and I even did an early attack on Syria to up the odds of a Vichy collapse.  Then I got saucy and went for Madagascar. 

Unfortunately, I should have taken a turn to set up my attack properly.  In getting bounced on the first try, I ended up taking three tuns to get it instead of two.  Also, I dropped into Morocco to get it to a higher number and was rewarded with a collapse of Vichy France.  But being rusty, I forgot that the rest of the North African territories would go German immediately.  At least those PPs won't go Italian.

While this was going on, the Germans started pounding not only the convoys (which I had an adequate defense of the North Atlantic zones going) but the bombing of the Home Isles as well.  That really shrank the UK economic output and has changed the power balance in Egypt.  Not enough hitting on the subs by my convoy protection.  The Med carrier spent too much time in that theater instead of being in the Atlantic helping out.

The economic damage has given extra cards to the US and we are playing with the US being able to spend (and/or lend lease) 12 PPs so they are a bit more buff than would be allowed under the normal Europe only rules. 

It is the Fall '41 Turn this Friday and Eric is poised to attack in the East since he knows that I am on the edge of declaring with the Soviets.  I could have pulled the garrison last turn as a preempted move knowing that he would most likely go anyway, but I chose not to.  I want to see how the situation plays out.  I have been buying all heavy equipment up till now in anticipation of large infantry buys once the fighting starts.  That along with the 10 conscripts and the half of the Siberian troops showing up makes me feel okay about being able to drop in the right mixture to supplement my core of heavies that I have prepositioned in Leningrad and Sevastapol. 

I am going to try an interesting tactic of holding in those two areas and letting him run up the middle.  Of course I need to also hold the territory adjacent to Leningrad to remain in supply there and to hold the Caucasus area to remain in supply in the Crimea, but I am trying to set up my forces with enough armor to allow some flexibility to attack the exposed flanks.

Now we shall see how this plays out with him looking like he will get Cairo now that I couldn't continue my build up there based on reduced UK PPs.  Then again, I hope that the US (which is almost in) will help apply the pressure on the back side, by land and by sea.

Then again, I could just crap myself like I usually do.   

[Yoper]

As always, things are going poorly.  For me that is.

He took Cairo and is on the edge of the Caucasus in the south.  He is poised to take Kalinin and put Leningrad out of supply after I shifted a large portion of my attacking capability to the south for a mech attack on Kiev.  In trying to isolate it so he couldn't retreat, I took a certain amount of hurt that then made the actual attack less than.  I ended up bailing with three medium armor after a couple of rounds. 

I once again miscalculated my attack ability based on the damned light armor.  I can't take the extra infantry along in the mech phase with them.

On a brighter note, I finally had a good night against the subs.  I cleared out the German ones in the north and the Italian ones in the south.  I withstood an amphib on Gibraltar that probably should have made it in and the US in now in the war with its first batch of units in Morocco along with the UK expeditionary force that went as far as Algiers but has been forced back to Oran.

I hope to hit the Fatherland with some strategic bombing and force some of the Luftwaffe back off of the Eastern Front.  It made the life of the Soviet air force difficult in the run up to the aforementioned mech attack and then strafed the crap out of the attacking ground forces.

With the abort roll rule that we are using, at least I didn't lose a big chunk of the USSR air, but it just wasn't available for the crucial air cover mission of the mech attack since it needed to cover an earlier flank attack and was knocked out of action for the rest of the turn.

We are half way through the current game and will play it all the way out to see what transpires.  Part of it is to see how the modified USSR event driven chart worked, along with our other ideas.  And part is to see how the US now affects the playout in the Europe only game. 

[Mark]

Does not sound too bad for the Allies if it is mid-1942.  What turn are you in? 

Maybe you will have to invade France early to take some heat off the Russians?

[Yoper]

Well, we just finished the Axis half of turn 14 (Winter 42) and things look bleak.

The USSR has fallen back to the Urals and a couple of spots in the Caucasus.  The Turks jumped on the band wagon once the situation presented itself.  I thought that I might be able to hold off the southern flank, but the extra troops that come with them joining is too much.

I have cleaned out the Atlantic and have done some damage through strat bombing, but the Germans are pulling in the 120's and the Italians are mid twenties. 

The UK is in North Africa all the way to Tunisia and The US has shot around to the horn of Africa putting pressure on the Italians in Egypt, but my general ineptitude in fighting the large land battles on the Eastern Front has doomed me. 

The revised optional USSR entry chart that I came up worked well, and I am pleased as to how it realistically represents the pre-war political situation on the Eastern Front. 

We are going to play out the game to see how things fall out.  Eric has been above the 25 VP threshold for multiple turns now, but we are interested in getting back in the swing of things and it doesn't hurt to finish out for learning purposes.  Hopefully I can take the lessons learned and use them next game against him when the sides are switched.

Even with my poor track record as the USSR, the main issues this game have been a cascading series of events.  The terrible defense of France allowed too many German units to survive for later use in other theaters.  Then the dice doomed my otherwise formidable convoy defense in the Atlantic.  The North African arms race was lost once I didn't have the PPs to continue the build up in Egypt (see the damage in Atlantic).  Now the Soviets will be pushed off the map and the US and UK will never be able to produce enough equipment to land in force even if they secure Africa. 

Peace in our time will be imposed upon the Western powers by a dominate Axis hegemony.  Heck, we were even joking that we may actually see someone build a V2 or a jet fighter for once.  

[m7574]

a good axis player will put Russia in this position almost every time.  You are not alone Yoper. 

In our last game Germany took heavy casualties in the lead up to Barbarossa.  I kept count.  40 units were destroyed in all.  It did not matter.  Russia was pushed back to the Urals anyways.  The problem is that the Germans DO NOT have to attack in order to force a Russian withdraw.  Their mechanized divisions can go around.  The Red Army must withdraw or be cut off.  Its that simple.   

To top it all off, once the Red Army is able to start pushing back they will face a 30-40 aircraft (sometimes more!) straeff by the luftwaffe, which yield a 6-1 loss and sometimes greater. 

Russia doesn't begin to take back ground until the Germans decide to start giving it back, settling for defensive positions behind the Dnieper.  Good luck cracking that nut!

[Yoper]

Well, I am playing a damned good player in Eric (as John and Mark can attest to), but I have my own deficiencies that have contributed to this situation. 

I would be in a bit better position if I hadn't tried to be proactive in the south early on, but it would still be pretty bad.  The loss of the Middle East is the extra dagger I didn't need to push the Eastern Front past the tipping point.

He may have around 40 air units on the map total, but only 50 to 60 percent is in the USSR area.  There are at least 5 fighters in France/Germany, at least 5 ftrs face me in North Africa/Italy, and maybe three in Egypt.  Yes, I've gotten hit with the 15 ftr, couple of bombers, and a stuka strafe, but the overwhelming mech units is where I am getting bludgeoned.

Ultimately, I need to more methodical and patient when defending in the USSR while waiting for the cavalry to get in the game.  That, or just have Dan be the Soviets.  He is the best at doing the deed.

[m7574]

You can't rely on an incompetent opponent to pave your way to victory.  Playing vs the best is the only way to devise a winning strategy.  All other wins are hollow victories IMO.   I have the honor of playing Scott, known as WASP in the Axis and Allies world.  I will tell you Russia just can't cut it.  But to keep the damage to a minimum one must do the following...

1  Keep the Black Sea!  You cannot allow Turkey to join the Axis.  We play the double trigger rule, so Greece falling is not enough to lose Turkey.  UK must do their part and the Russians need to keep their garrison on the Turkish Border.  Keeps the Crimea in supply which is critcal to number 2....

2  Hold The Crimea!  If Germany wants it, they will take it.  But make em pay for it! 

3  don't waste money on aircraft until late in the game.  Preserve what air you do have in order to defend your factories from un-escorted bombing attacks.

4  you don't need 20 AA guns.  in territories you have 4-5 forts it will do him no good to straeff you.  Your AA guns belong with the mobile part of your army.  That means the one that is constantly falling back, haha.

5 you will need armor units late in the game to take back territory lost in the fastest manor possible.  It will likely be late 1943 or 1944 until you can seize the innitiative.  So start piling them up and protect them.   Stuka straeffs are your biggest enemy.   ATG's can be purchased to protect you from armored attacks. 

6  you want the whermacht to attack you!   If Germany succeeds at pushing you to the Urals without a fight, you are in trouble.  When he begins his withdraw in late 1943 or 1944 he'll have huge amounts of troops to defend his objectives.  Tactically the terrain favors the Germans substantially.  I try to leave my army in harms way with a little less than 50/50 odds just to try and whittle him down.  The more mechanized components you can eliminate the better!

7  don't get cut off!  those paratroopers are his best weapon.  They can hurt you in so many ways!   I've even had Scott use them to straeff an army in the rear, then hit me again on the mech phase!  ugh!

8  finally, the more aircraft the western allies can draw away from the Eastern front the better.  There are many ways to do that.  Psycological warfare- Its the game within the game.

[Yoper]

Believe me, I know the game!  That doesn't mean I always play it properly. 

My main issue is the turn to turn ability to see all the possible avenues of attack by my opponent (or even myself at times).  Especially on the eastern front where the multiple layers of defense are needed to deal with paradrops and mech encirclements. 

It is a similar issue that a game like chess presents for me.  I can't readily see the future permutations that are necessary in that game.  I can get very tunnel-visioned in what I am going to do and have trouble shifting gears when the situation dictates it.

But that is why I play Struggle.  To try and stretch my capabilities.  To get better at dealing with the vast variables that are present in this game.

And it is the main reason why I rarely play the conventional A&A games any more.  They lack the depth that this game has.  I am not saying that I have mastered those games, but they have lost most of their appeal to me because of the limited patterns that one can take, especially the latest version (Global).  Having seen what is available in playing this game, those games are a pale imitation at this point.

Also, as I have stated earlier, since we are down to just the two of us right now I hope that the lessons learned will stick with me more readily since the chances to apply them will come about sooner.

[m7574]

The layers needed in defense of Russia..... its overwhelming.  Its crazy how russia HAS to fall back without as much as a single battle.  Stand your ground and get cut off, then straeffed be 30+ aircraft trying to get out.  ugh.   

You are lucky to have a player like this Eric fella to play.  A quality opponent makes all the difference.  Its why I've kept an interest over the years.  Never gets old when your opponent is top shelf.  The guys who don't have good local opponents wind up painting their pieces to artistic perfection with all their spare time, lol.

[Yoper]

I know that I am not the greatest, but I do have to remind myself every once in a while that I am playing a damn good player.  But as you say, it is better to have someone that pushes you to get better.

I just hope that he continues to enjoy playing against someone like me.  I think what works best is the other player that we normally have is a very good player in his own right and it keeps things interesting.  But he is out for a while because of work issues.