Clash of the Mortals (Allied Major Victory)

[Cybvep]

Very unexpected, but I think that Sea Lion would be a better option.

[rkr1958]

Very unexpected, but I think that Sea Lion would be a better option.

Not for me

[rkr1958]

[Diplomaticus]

Ronnie,

Wow, you sure know how to do an AAR right. This is professional quality stuff. May I ask what program you use to get such great graphics + comment boxes?

[rkr1958]

Ronnie,

Wow, you sure know how to do an AAR right. This is professional quality stuff. May I ask what program you use to get such great graphics + comment boxes?

Thank you!

1. I paste my screen shots to Corel Paint Shop Pro X. But you could use a free quality photo editor such as gimp: http://www.gimp.org/

2. I then select the portion of the screen cap I want in Paint Shop Pro (or Gimp) and copy that portion to MS powerpoint. I got office very cheaply through my work. A very good and free alternative is draw in Sun's Openoffice which is the open source and free alternative to MS office. It also includes a word and Excel equivalent. Also, you can save documents in Openoffice to PDF. If I hadn't been able to get MS Office for nearly nothing (through work), I would definitely be using openoffice.

3. In powerpoint, I then add my text boxes and text. Some of the tables that you see are copied in from Excel or word.

[rkr1958]

[rkr1958]

[rkr1958]

[Diplomaticus]

It looks to me like the Axis is in big trouble. His most successful theater is the Middle East, but even there time is against him. With the units you have to slow him down at Baghdad, Mosul, etc., he won't even begin his assault on Basra until the Americans have entered the war. He'll probably take Persia in early 1942--but with the USSR DoW coming up, can he hold it?

It looks like you stand a decent chance of holding him off at Casablanca. If you can hang on there long enough, the Americans can reinforce you, and you'll be able to keep Spain out of the war, which would be catastrophic for Germany. In fact, if you can do that, there's a good chance that you can get Spain to join the war for the Allies!

IMO, Axis is making a huge mistake in engaging in an air war with the RAF in France. I have no idea why he's keeping that wounded fighter so close to Britain where he can get strafed. This is a game of attrition that plays right into the Allies' hands.

Given the allocation of forces all over the map and the economics of the game so far, Germany is going to be woefully unprepared for the Russians in 1942.

All in all, you may be looking at an early end to this war.

[rkr1958]

It looks to me like the Axis is in big trouble.

I hope you're right. This is the first game as either the allies or axis that I've played where the armistice has been rejected. I'm not use to Britain being on their own for this long. I feel I've been playing a cat and mouse game, where I'm the mouse, just trying to stay alive and keep the cat busy until I can get the two big dogs into the war. Then let's see what the cat does.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

I think the Axis strength is actually rather low. He has a huge sub force, but with the Allied DD's coming the subs won't last long. The Axis don't have a huge air and land force. In 1942 they need to garrison the east front against Russia.

I think the best Russian strategy now is to go for offensive units like armor and air. Make sure you go on the offensive as soon as you enter the war. Russia won't suffer a big effiency drop in 1942 so an offensive can start early. There are enough Russian corps and mech units at the start so building armor and air units plus some decent leaders means a Russian offensive can be deadly.

The Axis player really needs to take Baku and Casablanca. Getting Spain on the Axis side would help. A big problem for the Axis is that the offensive in Persia and Iraq will only give him quite a bit of oil and a safe spot in the Mediterreanean. PP wise it's a bad deal. So if the Allies don't fight in the Med they can instead land in France. Axis units already in the Med can't quickly get to France if there is an early Overlord.

The only threat to you is the huge sub force. As long as they lurk you can't safely sail across the Atlantic with reinforcements. So getting all those DD's will help a lot. Then even the Allies can go for builds that can land in France early.

Still, the Axis can hold out quite a bit if they build land units now and put them in Russia and France. They don't need to worry about forces in Italy so that means more garrisons in France.

It won't be easy for the Allies to seize the initiative, but it's certainly doable with the right strategy. All you need is TIME. You have to ensure the Axis are busy in Algeria / Morocco and Persia before Russian joins the Allies. Once Russia joins and can rail units to the Baku area they won't get anywhere there.

[minor]

As far as I remember Spain won't join Axis after USA enters the war. So there are only 4 turns left. Germans probably won't even get to Casablanca in time.

[trulster]

Great AAR! Allies surely in the best position. Think though it would have been better to not evacuate Iraq, but rather reinforce it. After all, only minor Axis forces in the theatre and if you can easily hold for US (and later Soviet) reinforcements.

[Cybvep]

As far as I remember Spain won't join Axis after USA enters the war. So there are only 4 turns left. Germans probably won't even get to Casablanca in time.

Yeah, I think that you are right. All in all, I think that the Axis player didn't expect to suffer high casualties in France and doesn't really know what to do now.

[rkr1958]

Great AAR!

Thank you and I'm glad you're enjoying it.

Allies surely in the best position. Think though it would have been better to not evacuate Iraq, but rather reinforce it. After all, only minor Axis forces in the theatre and if you can easily hold for US (and later Soviet) reinforcements.

Well, by my count the axis in the Middle Eastern theater of operation have 2 German mech, 1 tank led by Guderain and 1 infantry corps; 2 German fighters and 1 TAC; 2 Italian infantry and 1 mech corps; and 2 axis minor fighters. My calculation was that that force was too powerful with what I had left there and that my reinforcements to the area would best be used to try to save Morocco, Agdair and the 4 Free French units that are to spawn later. In retrospect, I made the wrong decision to garrison the oil field and not Mosul. And then with the Iraqi insurgent spawned in Mosul I stayed too long trying to clean that area up. The result was that I lost a British mech and armor corps that I wish I now had back and certainty could be put to good use in Morocco. The only upside of this, if there is one, is that the axis moved in strength north to Mosul and not south towards Baghdad and Basra giving Palestine a few more turns of life as a British colony.

One thing just occurred to me looking at the screen caps. Though, I've ceded middle east oil fields to the axis; they don' t as of yet actually have control of any of them. Though all this will probably start to change next turn; this means that the axis oil stockpiles at this moment are probably not that healthy. I'm not sure what use I can make of that right now; but when the Soviets enter I plan to push with a strong Soviet Front into the Middle East from the Caucuses.

[rkr1958]

[rkr1958]

Editorial note: As you can probably tell I'm not proof reading my AAR as I post it. As a result there's a ton of grammatical errors. The truth is that doing an AAR at this level takes a lot of time and properly proof readings every entry would add at least 50% to that time. I know that's really no excuse; but I do hope you understand, can read past them to my true meaning and forgive me for being a bit sloppy in my grammar.

[joerock22]

Editorial note: As you can probably tell I'm not proof reading my AAR as I post it. As a result there's a ton of grammatical errors. The truth is that doing an AAR at this level takes a lot of time and properly proof readings every entry would add at least 50% to that time. I know that's really no excuse; but I do hope you understand, can read past them to my true meaning and forgive me for being a bit sloppy in my grammar.

Don't worry about it! I know how time-consuming an AAR can be, especially one this detailed. Truthfully, I don't even notice the grammatical errors that much.

[rkr1958]

[Cybvep]

Axis progress is very slow. If you are fast enough, they may even not be able to capture Casablanca. Not that it matters that much now, since Spain will not join the Axis if the USA is in the Allies. Even in the Middle East you may have a chance to hold Basra if you support it with more troops and it will take several turns for the Axis to capture all oil fields even though there are no units defending them.