Slitherine

As Iraq is now taken, Axis regroup and prepare to attack Persia, when the time is right. Meanwhile British keep harassing our units with their airstrikes.



We should not advance into Persia right now to avoid USSR war entry. I am sure Morris is well aware of that and places his units in provocative way (for example I can attack one of his fighters with my Italian infantry).



Meanwhile in Europe large US fleet spotted (and harassed a bit). Looks like we will have 1942 landing in France, right?

You seem to control two Persian hexes. Won't the SU join the Allies now?

Cybvep wrote:You seem to control two Persian hexes. Won't the SU join the Allies now?

No. There are no Axis units in Persia.

This turn we tried to deploy our Italian surface ships for Atlantic, as US navy is near Britain anyway. But Gibraltar was guarded by RN sub. Atleast we hit it for good result.



Nothing new in Iraq:



Build up of forces near Soviet border, we still have to attack there, once spring arrives.:





New convoy detected and attacked immediately:

Lots of naval action this turn - weak Allied destroyers attacked our subs, but it does not end very good for them:









3 DDs total sunk.

Fair weather arrives in central zone, and Allies immediately started to bomb Axis garrisons in France:



Thats not so many bombers (yet) and most likely we can't afford to intercept them, as there are fighters there for sure too.

More bombing in France this turn, another US tac joined.

And we detected 2 large heavily escorted convoys heading for UK - can't do much with them sadly.

This turn USSR joined the war - we had no fair turn to DoW them, so there will be no morale drop. Not like it matters - current Soviet morale is still low compared to Axis one.





Axis did some attacking, picking most exposed Soviet units here and there, but in general we don't plan to advance deeply into USSR (and suffer from SW there).





In Persia attack was launched aswell, claiming Ahwaz area:





At sea convoy was spotted and attacked again:

In the East usual Soveit retreats occured, SS armoured near Minsk was cut off by Soviet garrison.





In the Atlantic British sub torpedoed Italian BB, but results was not bad for us:



Allies prepare defences around Tehran in Persia:



In Axis turn little more progress was achieved in the East, nothing special:





Same for Iran - several good British mech units there, but seemingly nothing we can't deal with:



In the Atlantic American convoy was detected and attacked with many Axis naval units:

More Soviet retreats, no counterattacks here:





Soviet fighters spotted in Iran. Interesting - how many of them are actually there



And we already have landing in France! Should do something with them as soon as possible.



Axis mostly stopping advancing in the East, preparing defensive positions instead. No point at all to go into SW zone to get couple of low PP cities, and its not like we have forces to advance deep anyway.





In Iran Sarkan oil fields were secured:



In France Allied landings were counterattacked, additional reserve units sent to this scenario. Its hard to achieve much against so many Allied air units though. My bad not having couple of armour units ready to go on invasion turns - now Allies will entrench in those forests and it will get even harder.

During Allied turn corps was lost in France and Cherbourgh area ended isolated, Axis units were heavily harassed by airstrikes:



Another counteratack in Iran, but Italian corps there held at 3 steps:



Mostly quiet in the East, though minor Soviet counterattack arleady occured in the south:





In France Axis focused on repairs this time. Maybe once our units will get entrehcned, they would suffer less damage from airstrikes and we can actually counterattack?



In Iran Qom was taken and British mech killed there. Number of other Allied units were battered:



Nothing in the East - just more defensive preparations:

In France Allies keep landing more units and expanding beachhead - not good at all.



In Iran Qom was retaken by Allies and Italian mech left without supplies:



And we are attacked in the East now aswell. Red Army have lots of forces, but tech and morale are poor yet, we will try to hold them off for a while.





Some counterattacking in Normandy - 1 mech was killed and another one reduced to 1 step.



In Iran we retake Qom back, battering Soviet cavalry in process. Air unit attrition is annoying, Allies have way too many fighters.



In the East there was retreat to Dneistr defensive line in the south, in the north positions were held.

More of the same in Normandy - never ending flow of Allied transports and airstrikes, Cherbourgh was taken with massive naval support:



Little action in Iran this time, but thats huge Soviet contingent sent there. Probably we will not be able to take Tehran afterall:



In the East Soviets keep advancing and doing probing attacks:





During Axis turn we killed one more British mech and reduced another one to 1 step in France.



No offensive action in Iran - actually now we are preparing our own defensive positions:



Same in the East - no counterattacks, just retreats and defensive preparations:

Soviet attacks continues in the East, we even got a hole in our lines near Brest-Litovsk. Nothing serious for now though.





Surprisingly, no attacks in Iran this time.



Lots of heavy fighting and airstrikes in France, as usually.



In Axis turn positions near Brest-Litovsk were restored by local counterattack





In France I had to repair my tanks again, instead of attacking anything. Maybe once bad weather arrive it will get easier?



Nothing in Iran.

Now its full scale heavy fighting everywhere.









During Axis turn we do what we can to fix it a bit:









For now lines hold, but MP and PPs are getting chewed, casualties are mounting. Sadly, looks like we can't remove that Allied landing in France even with our good units deployed to this scenario - too many Allied airpower. Once Allied troops concentration in Normandy becomes critical, they will break out and we are unlikely to stop them anywhere before German border atleast - thats worrying.

yes , as Plaid mentioned , the Normandy landing before 1944 is always a cancer for Axis especially after losing the air superiority . & Also Axis has three bloody fronts . It is really a challenge for Axis economy & human resource ( since Axis conquer all middle east oil ,no oil problem anymore)

Heavy fighting across the map continues:









Axis remain fully defensive, only few counterattacks here and there.

Thats really nothing new to report - Allied just keep grinding down Axis troops everywhere, where they can.









This time counterattack occured in Poland, where Soviet corps got killed and frontline became safer.





High tech German armour perform good against Soviets so far.

In the West looks like best we can hope for is to hold Allies in Normandy until fair weather arrives.



And more pointless local fighting in Iran. We are not going to advance anywhere there, but atleast we will hold our ground (and oil wells) for a while.



Atleast I have Italian navy operating freely on Allied convoy ways:

Uneventful turn - Allies mostly skipped it for repairs/upgrades. So did we.

What a meat-grinder. Your biggest problems seem to be lack of air superiority in Western Europe and a bit too thin frontline in the East. However, since you control most of the map, your PP income is high. Maybe with a few turns of respite you will be able to repair your air units and build some additional troops so that you will get more breathing room in the East. Even though the Soviets are strong (no real Barbarossa, after all), I would be more worried about the Western Allies in 1943 because of their airpower. I doubt that Morris will attack Vichy anytime soon, since that would give you even more income.