Slitherine

Stauffenberg wrote:The Canadian mech and corps will arrive near Halifax when Belgium surrenders instead of starting near Ottawa at the game start. The Canadian fighter will arrive near Liverpool when Belgium falls instead of starting near Ottawa. The Canadian garrisons will start in Quebec and Halifax at the game start.

Thanks:).

Stauffenberg wrote:<snip>
The initial BB ASW value of 2 is the same as before. We haven't altered the initial values at all. What's changed is a slightly slower gain of ASW. But at ASW tech 3 the subs have ASW strength of 7 and that's fine against the subs.

The point is that the Allies can't afford to spread their navy in 1940. You need to keep them together so your flank units can be protected. One way
of doing this is to use the French naval units in the most vulnerable positions. Sail some British naval units to western Med to patrol the Med so the French naval units can be freed.
<snip>.

Upon reflection I realise why I've tended to change my strategy for the u-boats and go after the UK escorts and not the convoys if I get the chance. And that's because in GS v2.0 you can now, replace u-boats losses (only 1 step a turn) when out at sea. So I'm not so worried about taking u-boat losses when attacking escorts as I don't have to go back to port to replace them.

massina_nz wrote:

Stauffenberg wrote:<snip>
The initial BB ASW value of 2 is the same as before. We haven't altered the initial values at all. What's changed is a slightly slower gain of ASW. But at ASW tech 3 the subs have ASW strength of 7 and that's fine against the subs.

The point is that the Allies can't afford to spread their navy in 1940. You need to keep them together so your flank units can be protected. One way
of doing this is to use the French naval units in the most vulnerable positions. Sail some British naval units to western Med to patrol the Med so the French naval units can be freed.
<snip>.

Upon reflection I realise why I've tended to change my strategy for the u-boats and go after the UK escorts and not the convoys if I get the chance. And that's because in GS v2.0 you can now, replace u-boats losses (only 1 step a turn) when out at sea. So I'm not so worried about taking u-boat losses when attacking escorts as I don't have to go back to port to replace them.

Very interesting.

Turn 20. September 15, 1940

Germans advanced from Zaragoza forcing to retreat spanish forces in Valencia and Pyrenees. They also stationed Luftwaffe and Regia Aeronautica air bases in spanish territory. May be zechi will push towards Valencia and get the city with his armoured units to gain definitive fair weather air bases there for this campaign if things go slower than expected (possibility of mud weather in the next turn.

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This turn I reinforced both retreated spanish units and make some shore bombardments with spanish navy in Basque Country with no results. On the other hand, spanish forces have almost completed their tiny defensive line around Madrid. Strong air strikes over these forces are expected on the next turn but main assault over Madrid is still unlike. As I have mentioned above, may be zechi armoured forces, after taking Valencia, will participate in the attack to Madrid by moving from SE and advancing through clear hexes of central Spain, thus operating from clear and fair weather hexes so they would not be affected by any penalty in their operations.

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Another thing to mention is spotted Kriegsmarine ships in french Atlantic ports. Now that Russia entry at war is in 1942, will zechi try something strange like a 1941 Sea lion operation?

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Also to mention that british 8th army started to advance to Tobruk convinced that, axis forces there, will be rather weak because of spanish campaign.

And finally, I will follow Plaid´s advice of deploying a corps unit in Gibraltar: instead of doing this from UK, I have sent an australian corps from Irak, that I hope can arrive in time to the fortress. Furthermore, I pretend to garrison Seville and Tangier along with mentioned operation in Canary islands.

Turn 21. October 5, 1940. Battle for Madrid starts.

Fair weather so the germans attacked spanish defensive positions in Madrid forcing to retreat mech corps and reducing it to 5 steps. Germans finally decided to directly attack to Madrid instead of securing their left flank capturing Valencia.

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Kriegsmarine in french ports last turn sailed SW being spotted by a british sub positioned near La Coruña.

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Spanish army performed well in this first phase of the battle for Madrid and with some air support of its air force (seriously depleted) forced to retreat attacking german corps reducing it to 4 steps. Meanwhile, spanish corps recently landed in Valencia coming from Barcelona advanced to Madrid threatening directly panzer corps supply lines and also Luftwaffe air bases. Note that spanish reinforcements are coming from the south and they are also in position of counterattacking the german panzer corps.

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British government finally gave the go-ahead to send a BEF to Spain which sailed from Plymouth to La Coruña and it consists in one infantry corps unit and a garrison. This BEF has as its main mission to expand the beachhead if Spain surrenders and to divert german forces from an attack to Gibraltar. This part of Spain is affected by normal winter effects and it is a very mountainous region so it will be easier to organize defensive positions there.

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2 questions regarding Spain
1) Has the port being added to Bilbao in this version?
2) I see there are changes in the Spanish Army OOB, have those being made for game balance or for historical accuracy?
Thanks, very interesting AAR BTW

1) Bilbao is not a port after feedback from Leridano
2) Spanish OOB is changed a bit after feedback from Leridano

He is a native Spanish person and would know what's a correct setup for his native country so we updated according to what he provided of information. He said that El Ferrol was the important Spanish naval base in the Atlantic and Bilbao was not needed as a port since it was a port mainly for merchant ships. Another question is what's the need for a port in Bilbao. The Germans will invade from southern France and have rail supply to their units. The Allies will most likely DoW Portugal first and
build up a strong force there before they storm Madrid. There is no need to land near Bilbao and use it as a port.

The most important result of having a port in Bilbao is that the Germans get yet another port they can use as a submarine base. As far as we know there was no such facilities in Bilbao. The new sub ability to repair one step at sea simulates that the subs were actually resupplied in neutral areas like Spain. E. g. in the famous movie Das Boot the Germans resupplied in the Spanish port of Vigo.

Turn 22. October 25, 1940. Yugoslavia is invaded. Hungary and Romania joins the Axis

Germans can´t get enough so this turn invaded Yugoslavia with 7 infantry corps (3 from axis minors), the hungarian mech and a tiny air support. It is still fair weather in Central Europe so yugoslavian forces offered no resistance and axis forces reached the outskirts of Belgrad. If the allies get mud weather on the next turn I expect the yugoslavian to last a little bit more than they are used to with fair weather and a stronger air support.

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Battle for Madrid continued this turn with a spanish corps and a garrison destroyed because of the german attacks. Since german air forces have total air superiority and have increased their air support for a total of 2 german tacs plus the italian air forces, they can bomb with no mercy the spanish capital so it won´t be long till Madrid falls.

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Spanish morocco forces counterattacked the panzer korps in an almost suicide action since the odds were very bad for them. A little bit more lucky was spanish counterattack in Valencia that achieved to reduce a german inf corps to 5 steps despite of the also high losses took by the spanish units.

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Battle at the sea in Spain continued when a spanish DD run into a german u-boat near Strait of Gibraltar. This action also discovered where the Kriegsmarine ships are pretending to go: the Med.

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This turn I wanted to take a screenshot of North Africa scenario for you can see italian units there are the "default" ones: I mean that no unit has been brought to Africa as a reinforcement.

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Nothing interesting to mention in the rest.

Stauffenberg wrote:1) Bilbao is not a port after feedback from Leridano
2) Spanish OOB is changed a bit after feedback from Leridano

He is a native Spanish person and would know what's a correct setup for his native country so we updated according to what he provided of information. He said that El Ferrol was the important Spanish naval base in the Atlantic and Bilbao was not needed as a port since it was a port mainly for merchant ships. Another question is what's the need for a port in Bilbao. The Germans will invade from southern France and have rail supply to their units. The Allies will most likely DoW Portugal first and
build up a strong force there before they storm Madrid. There is no need to land near Bilbao and use it as a port.

The most important result of having a port in Bilbao is that the Germans get yet another port they can use as a submarine base. As far as we know there was no such facilities in Bilbao. The new sub ability to repair one step at sea simulates that the subs were actually resupplied in neutral areas like Spain. E. g. in the famous movie Das Boot the Germans resupplied in the Spanish port of Vigo.

Well, first of all I have to say that I am also a native Spanish and a History proffessor and PhD and I have written some papers on Military History, so I don´t feel completely disqualified discussing the issue.
Regarding Bilbao, I understand the port is not added because of game balance, because if we discuss just historical, then there is no reason why Valencia should be included and Bilbao, that at the time was considerably more important, not.

Just to add some hard data
According to J. Miras Araujo, El tráfico portuario mercantil en una etapa de transición (IG 33, 2004)
In 1940 Bilbao was the leading Spanish port in volume of traffic, with 2.585 Tms, followed by Barcelona (2.085). Valencia wasthe fifth port at the time, with just 936 Tms, while Vigo, that you mentioned, was 17th, with just 300 Tms.

Valencia was added some time ago because the Axis (or Allies) had a long Spanish Med coast line they could invade. Barcelona already was a port and Cartagena was added because it was a naval base. Valencia was added as a city and because of the distance from both Barcelona and Cartagena we added a port. The reason was to give the invader more options about where to make the invasion. The invader needs supply and it could have come from the Valencia area.

In the Atlantic the situation is different. La Coruna was added with the naval base El Ferrol. Seville with the port Cadiz was added in the south since Spain doesn't control Gibraltar. Those two bases were the important ones for Spain regarding naval operations.

If the Axis attack from the Atlantic they would go through southern France or invade Portugal to get shorter distance to Madrid. The Allies would also invade via Portugal to get their units ashore before the Axis can rail reinforcements to make it very hard to take Madrid.

So nobody would make an invasion near the Bilbao area. It's too close to southern France. Leridano said that the Bilbao port was a merchant port and not a naval base. So therefore we don't have to have the port on the map. We want to have all naval bases plus some ports needed for game flow.

E. g. Civitavecchia in Italy doesn't really quality to be a port in GS. It was a small port close to Rome. The main reason we included it was because Rome is a coastal hex bordering 3 sea hexes. That means Rome can be directly invaded from 3 hexsides. Since Italy surrenders with the fall of Rome it was simply too easy to knock Italy out of the war. The Allies could send 3 BB's to the area to shore bombard the Rome defender every turn. Keeping the city empty was not an option because then a transport could get there and Italy would surrender.

So instead we made one of the sea hexes a port. That reduced the number of sea hexes bordering Rome from 3 to 2. Even more important is that the port means the Axis can place a sub there and attack BB's bombarding Rome.

With that change we stopped the game exploit and now the Allies instead land in southern Italy as they did historically.

So the placement of ports is not 100% historical, but it's done to give the players a chance to do what happened historically.

E. g. the minor port of Canakkale in Turkey is added and the only reason is to have it simulate the Dardanelles, thus closing off the sea of Marmara.

Stauffenberg wrote:E. g. Civitavecchia in Italy doesn't really quality to be a port in GS. It was a small port close to Rome. The main reason we included it was because Rome is a coastal hex bordering 3 sea hexes. That means Rome can be directly invaded from 3 hexsides. Since Italy surrenders with the fall of Rome it was simply too easy to knock Italy out of the war. The Allies could send 3 BB's to the area to shore bombard the Rome defender every turn. Keeping the city empty was not an option because then a transport could get there and Italy would surrender.

So instead we made one of the sea hexes a port. That reduced the number of sea hexes bordering Rome from 3 to 2. Even more important is that the port means the Axis can place a sub there and attack BB's bombarding Rome.

With that change we stopped the game exploit and now the Allies instead land in southern Italy as they did historically.

So the placement of ports is not 100% historical, but it's done to give the players a chance to do what happened historically.

E. g. the minor port of Canakkale in Turkey is added and the only reason is to have it simulate the Dardanelles, thus closing off the sea of Marmara.

Ok, that explanation is fine to me, thanks to take the time to give it.

Turn 23. November 14, 1940.

Still fair weather in Central Europe: this resulted in much more effectiveness of axis offensive actions.

This turn the germans reduced Madrid defenders to 2 steps. No way the spanish can delay the conquest of Madrid.

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The only thing that spanish did was to reinforce infantry corps in Madrid to 5 steps.

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In Gulf of Cadiz continued the intense naval activity and the australian corps from Irak arrived to Tangier port.

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Belgrad yugoslavian corps was also reduced to 2 steps. Luftwaffe air support in this campaing was increased.

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Wow, those counters really look amazing. Good luck leridano.

Turn 25. December 4, 1940. Afrika Korps!

Kudos to Zechi! He has launched a counterattack in Tobruk that has taken the british forces completely by surprise. As a result of this operation has been destroyed a british mech corps and an australian corps has been reduced to 4 steps.

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He replaced the defending italian corps at Tobruk with 4 entrechment level by armoured german forces and he had more german forces deployed in Africa than I believed.
This mean that zechi will go on the offensive in Africa so the best thing to do now here is to withdraw. I´m afraid this scenario could be a disaster for the british because of how things have turned out.

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In Gulf of Cadiz australian corps landed in Spanish Morocco and it is ready to be ferried to Gibraltar on the next turn.

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Many of the Photobucket images aren't showing, is there a problem?

oxford_guy wrote:Many of the Photobucket images aren't showing, is there a problem?

Yes, there has been a problem. But now it is solved.

The only problem from now will be only for the ones that have not followed this AAR from the beginning: they only will be able to "read" what has happened but not to see it. So apologies for all of them.

Great AAR this which already looks to go in a bit different path. The Brits have no air support in their attack on Libya? Could as you say turn into a disaster and an Axis lake of the Med, not to mention a rush for the Iraqi oil fields. Probably time to reinforce if possible!

trulster wrote: The Brits have no air support in their attack on Libya?

Yes, they have. But because of the still short spotting range of Egypt fighter I only was able to spot italian units. So this was carefully planned by zechi for I can´t see any german unit at all!