Slitherine

February 2, 1941

The Axis reduce one of my infantry corps to 1 step, and the British retreat. Iraqi garrisons move to the front to help cover the withdrawal behind the river. I think Frank may take out my 1-step corps with an air unit, but I hope it can be saved. My 2-step corps has been repaired back up to full strength. The scattered elements of the RN join up near Malta, and will begin escorting the fighter to Egypt next turn. This will give me advantages at sea and in the air, but Egypt still won't hold for long. I will need to send some help from the Russians or Americans to prevent Iraq from falling into Axis hands. I will do whatever it takes to keep the oil fields out of German hands!

The British begin construction of another DD fleet.

February 22, 1941

Churchill sends me a message: "Got any more bright ideas?"

I do believe I walked right into a trap. Kudos to my opponent on that one. If you want the gory details, go read his AAR . The RN bugs out of the death zone, though one of my DDs follows a bad path and runs into the hidden Italian sub. Instead of moving in a parabola, move in a straight line! It's the quickest way to get to the destination! I'd discharge that captain if I wasn't so sure he was going to end up shark food next turn.

Anyway, I plan to wash my hands of the Med completely now. The scattered and damaged elements of the RN will probably sail to the Persian Gulf where they can get repaired, and then to the Atlantic where they can help escort some fresh troops to Iraq. The ground forces will fight a delaying action, trying not to get themselves killed while retreating slowly. I'm anxious for Barbarossa to start. I want to redeem my poor performance thus far!

March 14, 1941

The RN withdraws through the Suez Canal on its way to the Persian Gulf for repairs and upgrades. Frank still has at least 2 subs in the south (convoy hunting), so I don't want to send them to the Atlantic damaged. I developed ASW Lv. 2 a few turns ago, a much needed upgrade for all surface naval units. The British army decides to withdraw from Egypt altogether; all units are now on the eastern side of Port Said. I will defend Damascus and the narrow corridor leading into the heart of Iraq. This will take the Italian Navy out of the picture and give me time to fight a delaying action all the way to Baghdad if necessary. It will take Frank several turns to capture the 3 Egyptian cities, and by then I'm hoping Barbarossa will distract him from pushing any further into the Middle East.

The only action this turn was the Malta fighter taking 2 steps off a German Tac based in Sicily and the UK stategic bomber in England knocking 3 steps off a sub that attacked a convoy too close to England. Britain purchases another DD this turn.

April 3, 1941

Nothing major to report. Unsurprisingly, Alexandria falls, and the British continue their retreat into Syria and the Persian Gulf. Frank continues to attack convoys close to Ireland, and my Strat takes advantage, knocking a whopping 5 steps off a sub! The u-boats have not been upgraded at all and my sub attack is 4, which explains the heavy damage. Also, a 10-step Yugoslavian partisan pops up right on one of the mines. It's only 2 PPs per turn, but I will certainly take the extra resources.

The British purchase another strategic bomber for anti-sub duties.

May 13, 1941

Cairo has fallen and Port Said nearly taken. I repaired it if only to make Frank put more effort into taking it. With Barbarossa on the horizon and a full-scale offensive in Egypt, Axis oil reserves must be relatively low. I will do everything I can to ensure that the Germans are kept out of the oil fields in the Middle East and the Caucuses. When the situation in the Middle East has been stabilized, I will send strategic bombers to hit Ploesti and the oil fields in Germany.

To that end, I continue to prepare for a second attempt to send reinforcements to the Middle East. Frank shows me the location of 7 subs, 3 in the north and 4 in the south. A strategic bomber based in Canada knocks 3 steps of one of the northern ones. The US DD sees an opening in the central Atlantic and attempts to sail across. Frank has plenty of u-boats, but none of them are upgraded. All of my ships have upgraded ASW values, with the BBs and CVs being 4 and the DDs being 7. So I should have no problem getting some transports to the Persian Gulf once the scattered elements of my navy unite. I really don't want to send too much Societ aid through Persian; if I'm going to mount any kind of winter offensive, I need all the units I can get.

The British recruit a corps for home defense to replace one of the units that will soon set sail for Kuwait.

June 2, 1941

No Barbarossa yet. Frank must be feeling the effects of his efforts in Egypt. The Russians can afford to defend more aggressively for every turn he delays. The British are set to ship 4 corps and 1 mech from England next turn. The 2 BBs and 1 CV based in the Persian Gulf sailed for the Atlantic this turn. I hope Frank doesn't have subs down there spying, but if he does I don't expect to lose more than one unit, and that's if I get unlucky. My upgraded navy is much more confident against the u-boats than they were before. Port Said falls, so it looks like the reinforcements will be needed. I fully expect Frank to make a push into Iraq. Otherwise, what is the point of conquering Egypt?

The British purchase their first infantry lab this turn (no focus).

Russia is quite powerful in 1941 after the addition of lend lease via Persia. So with the Germans entangled in Iraq I think you can dare to defend behind the Dnepr and not further east.

You will get a pretty good picture of the German strength in the east after the first turn of Barbarossa. The number of armor, mech and tac bomber units will tell you how far he can penetrate, especially the number of tac bombers. If he doesn't have a strong Barbarossa you can move Russian units from southern Russia across the border to Persia and rail them to Baghdad and Mosul to defend while your reinforcements are en-route from Britain. You can even fly the Russian airforce into Iraq to overwhelm the Luftwaffe. The Royal Airforce will certainly appreciate extra help there.

So I feel you have a pretty good chance to hold Iraq. Then the Germans will have burnt a lot of oil taking Port Said without compensating by grabbing more oilfields.

You can use the Russia strategic bomber to bombard Ploesti and British strategic bombers can bombard Scholven synth oil. The Germans will lose the initiative in 1942 unless they manage to hurt the Russians in 1941 and even more in 1942. Losing Port Said and part of the Royal Navy means very little if the German subs can't continuously stop the flow of convoys.

Stauffenberg wrote:Russia is quite powerful in 1941 after the addition of lend lease via Persia. So with the Germans entangled in Iraq I think you can dare to defend behind the Dnepr and not further east.

So this means that if the Axis conquer Persia, the Russian lend-lease will drop by how much? 15-20 pps?

Hi,
The Russians will lose 15 PP's per turn

June 22, 1941

Still no Barbarossa. The Russians are licking their chops now! Well, technically they don't know they are going to be invaded, but you know what I mean. Jerusalem fell to the Axis but the British reinforcements are on their way. The main armada sailed from Cardiff and has 2 strategic bombers flying overhead as escorts. The other half of my navy sailed north from the transport loop. One of my BBs ran into a sub, but because of ASW upgrades combat results were 3:0 in my favor. If all goes according to plan, the two forces will rendezvous off Portugal next turn and escort the reinforcements to the Persian Gulf transport loop. I know at least one of Frank's subs is far out of the way in the North Atlantic, and probably (and hopefully) more. I expect him to try to stop me, but I will move the escorts first and if I lose a ship or two it isn't the end of the world. The most important thing is getting these reinforcments to Iraq so I can stop the Axis from getting those precious oil fields.

Britain purchases another corps this turn; I don't like to leave England so empty, even at this point the game. Better to be safe than very sorry.

July 12, 1941

The Germans have apparently decided to wait until August to invade the USSR. I will do my best over the coming years to make Frank regret that decision.

Plenty of naval action this turn. As expected, Frank had subs blocking my path southward, which is why I moved the escorts first. My DDs roughed up a couple subs pretty good, but then my BB got slammed 4:0. I guess you can't win 'em all. The screenshot shows my combined fleet off Lisbon and the stragglers. A misclick means that one of my subs isn't in the area. Oops These transports are getting to Iraq this time, no matter how many subs I have to fight!

The British purchase a corps for home defense. England just looks safer with a few corps in it.

August 1, 1941

Alright, LOTS to talk about this time, so let's get right to it.

Barbarossa was launched. Below you can see the deployment my forces. I can see 5 German tanks, 2 Tacs, and 3 fighters. Many of the Axis minor units have been railed up north, with much of the German firepower concentrated in the south. This tells me that the northern action is mostly a diversion, and the majority of the Axis effort will be in the south. So I will concentrate my forces in the south as well, maintaining a single line of infantry in the northern forests and behind the river in the center. Four German tanks set off by themselves and attacked Vinnitsa, so I moved a whole mess of troops and tanks to Kiev. If Frank's tanks get too far ahead of the main body next turn, I will ambush them and attempt to destroy them. I don't think Frank expects me to amass such a large force in one place so soon, so maybe I can surprise him. And if he advances cautiously, then I will simply withdraw behind the river and wait for winter before launching my attack. Either way, those forces in the south should soon see some serious action. Because of the importance of the theatre, Zhukov is deployed to lead the army, while another general (Konev??) takes command of the center and Timoshenko commands the northern army from his base in Leningrad. Also of note, my doomed 3-step corps by Vinnitsa reestablished supply for several of the cut off garrisons. That should slow the Axis down a little bit by making the garrisons harder to kill. Here are the screenshots.





Also of interest is the situation in the Atlantic. Frank attacked my stragglers with a horde of subs and sunk two DDs, though at a heavy cost to the subs. The BB was damaged. The deployment of the subs looked funny to me, as if Frank was leaving me an alleyway for the BB to escape back to England. I got suspicious, decided that he probably had a hidden sub lurking there, and decided to take the other way out. ZoC would have prevented the BB from making it back to port no matter which way I went. At least now the BB is in range of both my strategic bombers. Only one of them was in range this turn, but it knocked 4 steps off a sub. I may even be able to sink one next turn if Frank goes after the BB. Here’s hoping!



The Royal Navy’s sacrifice is not in vain, however. All five transports made it through, and will go through the Persian Gulf transport loop next turn. The British fleet, on the other hand, will sail into the Med and try to wreak havoc on the Italian Navy and the forces on the ground. I may finally be able to transport the Malta fighter to the Middle East. Either way, I don’t want to risk another encounter with all those subs until I get more ships. To that end, the USA began construction on 6 DDs. I usually don’t like to invest much in the US Navy, but Frank has forced my hand with his massive sub fleet. As soon as possible I will construct naval labs to increase their ASW tech. I will probably have to spend all of 1942 building up for a major strike in Italy or France in 1943. In the meantime, I will hopefully be able to clean up the Med, retake Egypt, and move into North Africa.



And last but not least, we come to Iraq, where the British are no longer afraid to engage the enemy, since reinforcements will arrive shortly. My fighter received Dog Fight Lv. 2, and Stalin has graciously sent a Soviet fighter and bomber to the theatre to make absolutely certain the Germans don’t get their hands on the oil fields. If Frank pushes his luck here I will attack if the situation looks good.

August 21, 1941

Unfortunately, my opponent is too smart to fall into my trap by Kiev. He focused on cleaning up the Oddessa area while waiting for his infantry to catch up to his armour. That's fine; the Russians can wait. I withdrew my forces to more or less their final defensive positions, though I may fall back a little further in the far south. If Barbarossa had been launched earlier, I wouldn't dare try to hold here, but because Frank only has one more guaranteed turn of good weather, I think I can. Zhukov is busy raising effectiveness for the planned winter counteroffensive.

In the Atlantic, my transports made it through the Persian Gulf loop without incident, and the Royal Navy sailed into the Med. One of my BBs discoverd the Italian sub lurking off Gibraltar, but all of my ships still made it safey past the fotress. As hoped, my strategic bombers were able to sink an 8-step sub that helped finish off my damaged BB. I was getting 5:0 odds on each attack, and a little good luck helped as well. Two convoys are just off northern Ireland, and if the Germans attack those I will be able to counter with the 2 Strats at sub attack 4 and 2 fighters at sub attack 3. By all means, u-boat commanders, come and get some!

Encouraged by the prospect of imminent reinforcements, the British go on the offensive in Syria, destroying a German corps with the aid of the Russian Tac. Fighter losses are 3:3. We have air parity now, each having one strong fighter and one weaker one. The two UK CVs en route as well as the Malta fighter could throw the balance in my favor. But they are several turns away, so for now the Syrian army is on its own. Except for the three Persian garrisons I railed to screen Damascus and Beirut. Their effectiveness having once again been demonstrated, the British are saving up to purchase another strategic bomber. For now, they are my only hope for combating the submarine menace.

September 10, 1941

As a preliminary matter, my opponent told me he plans to discontinue his AAR due to a lack of time. I will continue mine, so you can follow along with the game here if you so desire.

Relatively little to report this turn. Frank destroyed my garrisons around Kiev but I railed 4 more in to screen the city. In this way, I hope to save the city without having to sacrifice any corps units. A double line is formed behind that area of the river to prevent an Axis breakthrough, with the single line now complete everywhere else.

The Axis pulled back slightly in Syria and I didn't pursue. Better to wait for reinforcements before pushing any further. Speaking of which, 2 corps and 1 mech landed in Kuwait this turn. Two of them will be able to rail next turn (1 was forced to land in a swamp). Within 3 turns my army should be in Syria and I should be able to launch an offensive. The Italian sub was rediscovered and sunk near Gibraltar with no British losses.

The Americans purchase a naval lab and a strategic bomber for raids against targets inside Germany and France, namely the Schoven oil facility, the Ruhr, Essen, and Paris. This will begin in early 1942 just as the Axis are launching their offensive in the east.

September 30, 1941

Not much to report this turn. The Axis advanced a little but didn't attack my main defensive line, and also didn't capture Kiev. There's a 75% chance of bad weather next turn, so I think the Axis offensive is largely over. Stalin has ordered his men to be ready to launch an attack at a moment's notice. Unless the Axis pull back, we will strike them with old man winter as our ally!

It was also quiet in Syria, though Frank reduced one of my Persian garrisons. A fresh British corps is railed to Beirut, and the Royal Navy sails eastward along the Algerian coast. The British purchase a second infantry lab and a strategic bomber, while the Russians purchase a second air lab.

October 20, 1941

I reread the manual, and it seems I've been thinking about the weather incorrectly. October brings a 25% chance of bad weather in northern Europe, while November brings a 75% chance. So with bad weather almost assured for next turn, the Russians felt confident enough to advance in the south to put themselves in position for a winter counterattack. Even if Frank get clear weather, I don't expect the damage to be too severe.

All of the British forces are now in Syria, ready for a slugfest. I may wait until the Royal Navy arrives with the Malta fighter before launching any major offensive operations. The RN is now at Malta.

The Russians develop Dog Fight Lv. 1, and both fighters are upgraded. The Americans purchase a third strategic bomber while the British are saving up to purchase a third fighter for England. Bombing German production will be top priority for the western Allies early next year.

November 9, 1941

The weather was mud in Cental Europe and fair in Northern Europe, much to my displeasure. The reason is that Frank was able to capture Kiev as a result. The only good thing that came out of it was it enabled one of my corps by Tallinn to rush in and recapture Riga. For how long will depend on the weather next turn, which will hopefully be mud or winter.

The British remain stationary in Syria, waiting for the Royal Navy to arrive. They are on their way with the Malta fighter, and recon shows no enemy air units in Crete or Libya to bomb the transport. On a positive note, the USA entered the war at the end of my turn, resulting in the redeployment of the Siberian reserves. It would be nice to have those units at the front before I launch my winter offensive, especially those tanks!

The Russians purchase a second infantry lab, while the Americans purchase a second naval lab. The British purchase a third fighter for England.

Nice reading.....seems like you are doing fine....How is you research for the russians? If you can deny him the oil in Middle east and in south russia, you should have the game in your hand.

What are your future plans? Are you still aiming for Italy or coast of france with that seaborne invasion?

Would you consider playing me, next game?

Good luck, regards Ricky

Crazygunner1 wrote:Nice reading.....seems like you are doing fine....How is you research for the russians? If you can deny him the oil in Middle east and in south russia, you should have the game in your hand.

What are your future plans? Are you still aiming for Italy or coast of france with that seaborne invasion?

Would you consider playing me, next game?

Good luck, regards Ricky

Research with the Russians is typical. I have 2 labs in every category except naval, and have developed Dog Fight Lv. 1 but not much else. I hope to purchase a third armour lab next turn.

My future plans are to focus entirely on the Med for all of 1942 and possibly 1943. The only exception will be strategic bombing of targets inside Germany. I need to defeat the Axis in Syria, but while that's going on the way should be clear for an ampibious invasion of Sicily. Once I get Sicily and Sardinia, and some planes down there, it should only be a matter of time until Italy surrenders. Meanwhile, the Soviets should have turned the tide by then and I will plan a major invasion of France for 1944, just as the Russians are launching a massive offensive in the east. Of course, all these plans are fluid and could change.

I currently have seven games going and I’ve discovered that I can’t handle any more than that. If I finish a game and one of my current opponents doesn’t want to play again, I’ll contact you.

Thanks for the interest,
Joe

November 29, 1941

Severe winter arrived at the end of my opponent's turn, and I immediately set out trying to take advantage. Soviet forces destroyed 2 German corps and 1 Romanian while damaging several others and closing with the main body of the Axis forces. Some of the Siberian reserves arrived to bolster the advancing Red Army.

In Syria, I almost destroyed a German corps and was quite lucky in fighter combat. The RAF fighter inflicted 5:2 losses on the Luftwaffe fighter with odds of 4:4, and the Russian fighter performed well against the Italian one. The Malta fighter is ready to land on Cyprus next turn, and the Royal Navy is finally on the scene. We will keep pushing until we drive the Axis from North Africa!

The Americans purchased a third naval lab and the Russians purchased a third armour lab.