Plaid vs Morris - restarted

[Plaid]

Its another game we play with Morris to further explore axis changes to win and game balance.
I decided to share this tale aswell, to show the GS team another axis defeat (or victory, you never know in advance).

Short summary of what happen before:

Traditional Poland campaign in 2 turns, then seitzkrieg. Low countries were invaded on 1st fair turn of 1940 - march 19.

I didnt purchase 3rd TAC for germans this time, instead I built bunch of MECH units, which maybe will be more usefull. Also built 2 additional fighters.

At the moment I have good lab situation - 8 labs built for germans (and plan to built to 10 in nearest time), and maximum availiable ( i believe only 2 now) for Italy.

Now it is turn 14 - May 18 1940 and here we start our story.



Morris placed solid wall of french garrisons on way of my troops, so I didnt have a chance to kill any non-garrison unit so far. Our progress is rather slow, but we are not in the hurry, are we? Also luftwaffe got a bit hurt in combat with allied fighters, probably it is worthy to repair this fighters.

And here is situation at the end of my turn:



Got some good progress, mostly on the south, but french casualties are still light. Also repaired my luftwaffe near Brusseles and deployed 4th fighter at Cologne.

Also kriegsmarine uboats, which were mostly hunting unescorted convoys until now achieved kind of succes - damaged (8 step) RN DD escort was sunk by 3 subs.

[Plaid]

I expected Morris to counterattack aiming for one of my forward mech units, but instead he retreats.



We follow in careful manner, destroying number of French garrisons and Gamellin's HQ corps near Paris.



Morris is now short on garrisons, which means that he will start to lose good french and UK units next turn.

We estimate that France will hold 2-4 turns from now, depending on how agressive allies will be.

Italy joined axis at the end of my turn.

[Plaid]

Traditional campaign going on in France.



1 british mech and 1 french corps destroyed, aswell as 2 french garrisons.
Also we control Rouen now.



Italian airpower gathered to help our french campaign.

I expect allied counterattack agains my bridgehead over Seine right now.

[Plaid]

Expected counterattack happened, destroying corps infantry and damaging panzer on the bridgehead.



Still we were able to launch overwhelming all-out attack, destroying great number of allied units, including RAF fighter.



Expected more counterattacks from desperate allied HQ. Probably I will lose another unit this turn. Maybe it will be para, which was landed to shield panzergrenadier unit (it scored bad like 2:4 results and really need protection with 6 steps left).

[Plaid]

It turned out that allies were in better fighting shape, that we expected. They counterattacked indeed, destroying corps and mech units.



Anyway, this extensively bloody campaign is now over, as Paris falls, but only after all allied troops wiped out around city.

Its a good example of allied effective defence (well, apart from losing huge BEF of 2 corps 3 mech and FTR) - very little french troops left on the map, Paris taken from their cold dead hands.



Casualties : most suffered in France for sure, not in Poland.



Whats next?

[zechi]

You should begin preparations to invade Yugoslavia, so that Romania and Hungary join the Axis as soon as possible. In addition you could try to capture Denmark/Norway for more PP + 1 INF + Norwegian ports and better protection of the Swedish iron ore.

Furthermore, you could begin to prepare defenses in the Med (or an offensive, but I wouldn't do this).

Cheers Zechi

[Plaid]

Nothing interesting going on so far, after fall of France, so I didn't post all turns.

Evacuation of Italian troops almost complete, with minor losses of 2 garrisons (1 near Tobruk and 1 in transport, shielding other units).

This feature, which refund PP when you unload into port really helps poor italian PP income.



Also captured Denmark, but didn't go for Norway, as Morris will deploy huge BEF as usual and make this campaign long, which I don't like at all.
Skipped Yugoslavia also. It meant that Romania and Hungary joined axis 2 turns later, but I didn't take casualties and will not be forced to garrison the place.

At the moment 5th UF comissioned for kriegsmarine, and 6th will be ready soon. Germany have 10 labs (2 each), Italy have 6 labs (2 in inf, armour and general).

Sicily will be strongly reinforced with able german units as soon as possible.

[Plaid]

Evacuation from Lybia is almost complete now, as only Tobruk garrison left in Africa.

I believe it is blocked by RN subs anyway (2 of them seen in MED), so will not try to sail away.



Defences of Sicily keep being reinforced. Now need some good german units like tank or mechs (and general for sure) to hold the island firmly.

In english channel RN BB (full strength) was sunk by large force of german subs.



Noone bombard our precious panzergrenadiers and get away with it!

[Crazygunner1]

Hi Plaid, nice AAr

I think you are putting yourself in a very dangerous position here. First doing Sietzkrieg against a player like Morris is a not a good choice, you will most likely suffer heavy losses in the battle for France as you did. Not to mention deminish your strategical options for the rest of 1940 since France most likely falls in July or August.

Withdrawing in NA seems drastic as well, i think you should atleast make him fight for it. It feels like you are already loosing the initiative even though Barbarossa is not yet launched. Morris is now in a good position to focus on Antisub efforts to make your life much harder in the atlantic, my guess that Morris (being so offensive) will build up his britts and launch an attack somwhere at the same time as Barbarossa starts. Either way i think you will have a tough campaing in Russia and lot's of hard decisions for the rest of the game.

You said that you are a little bit further than you AAr says, are you up to date now or is it still some more turns to go?

Good luck, Plaid

Crazyg

[Diplomaticus]

Hi Plaid, nice AAr

I think you are putting yourself in a very dangerous position here. First doing Sietzkrieg against a player like Morris is a not a good choice, you will most likely suffer heavy losses in the battle for France as you did. Not to mention deminish your strategical options for the rest of 1940 since France most likely falls in July or August.

Given the severe limitations on offensive combat during bad weather, I don't see how you can pull off an early attack on France unless you happen to luck out on the weather rolls. My (admittedly limited) experience with trying to attack during mud/winter has discouraged me from even trying to do so.

The -20 morale penalty following the fall of Belgium would be wasted if you invaded in, say, the winter of '39-40, wouldn't it? Movement's so slow, and attacks are so dulled that it seems you'd make very little progress, and by spring the Allies would have recovered their lost Effectiveness.

You're right to say that an aggressive Morris can delay the fall of Paris until July/August 1941... but he pays a terrible price for doing so: loss of an RAF fighter and of a huge infantry presence. I would think that the payoff from that loss to the UK should compensate for a late conquest of France--or am I wrong?

P.S. Thanks for another great AAR

[Plaid]

I don't like blitzkrieg campaigns, as they cause unneeded casualties (for example when you operate in Poland without air support for 3-4 turns - this campaign can become bloody) and weather-dependent. In this game I had fair on turns 1-4, but not fair on turn 5(it should be fair to maximize blitz outcome).

Another thing which hurt is early activation of canadian troops, which will give allies air superiority (3 ftr and CV), which will further trouble luftwaffe life and cause high air casualties (very expensive).

I am rather happy with my french campaign - I lost couple of units, but killed great deal of UK troops there aswell. Still I had no other strategic plans for 1940 - Norway in previous game turned out to be bad option, as it is very long campaign vs Morris (sizeable BEF will arrive and severe winter will slow down things a lot).

Yugoslavia was also rejected. It meant that some axis minor powers joined 2 turns later, but I don't have to worry about partisans.

MED troops were evacuated from Lybia because of sizeable RN presence in the region mostly. Now I am not big fan of reinforcing Lybia with germans for defencive purpose, as allied navy can trap this troops in Africa without way back, which is not good at all. I will not repeat previous game mistake and will build healthy defence on Sicily with good german units, which I used to deploy for Lybia in my older games.

Not this AAR is slightly behind what happens, but nothing interesting happens so far.
I will post Barbarossa preparations, Italy defences and so on, when ready.

[Crazygunner1]

Fall of Poland should be in 2 turns even though you transport a portion of the german army to the west. Otherwise i agree it will be costly(Plaid). The advantage you have against a early strike against France is that Morris won't be able to build more french Mechs and fill them with leaders to get that extra punch so needed to bleed the germans, he will have to use them to build Gar and repair units along the line.

The Britts will probably be on their way to their positions and also without any leaders and poor organisation. That means during fair weather turns you should have probably taken Holland and Belgium before bad weather starts to come. True the campaign will go slow from here but you need not to be that worried since he still almost every turn needs to spend PP on repair French units and brittish airpower. Again no new units or leaders that is so valuable to him will be built and you keep pushing destroying 2 gar each turn.

As soon as fair weather hits usually in March, you will probably be outside Paris and a couple of turns more to capture Paris.

Look at Max game against Morris, maybe a bit extreme but se how fast France fell and almost without any losses.

Anyway, i think it's an option against an aggressive player like Morris

Crazyg

[Plaid]

Still nothing interesting happens. Defences on Sicily ready, allies will have no success here without serious TAC air support, they cant provide this early.

Also in Atlantic we found canadian transport, which turned out to be simple garrison though :



Still convoy cant escape kriegsmarine too and will be destroyed next turn.

Barbarossa preparations are underway, estimated start date will be 2nd June.
Previous time I started early and what it gave me? Looks like nothing.

[Plaid]

Only interesting event of this few turns was that hunting for convoys we eventually discovered some allied transports (and MED fleet) sailing towards Britain.

I see 2 australian inf and probably 2 FTR in ships. So it is unlikely anything will happen on Sicily soon.





Destroyed 1 BB, damaged another one and CV so far. All allied warships have very poor ASW (actually 0 tech) and are vulnerable to subs. If Morris continue to expose his navy, he will lose it all.

Looks like 1941 landing in France is his plan again by the way.

[Plaid]

Another DD destroyed and transport attacked so far.



My subs have odds like 4:1 vs Morris's destroyers. I believe he will have problems simple landing in France, as he need navy to screen and supply his invasion, which is relatively weak and suffered major casualties of atleast 3 BB 2 DD.

Also RAF started to bomb Brest and various german troops, wandering on the map. My fighter stationed in France suffered heavy losses and need repairs now.

Actually I have some interesting thoughts about allied landing.

Also here is a picture of Sicily defences. Look solid to me.



Barbarossa will be launched next turn probably. I am a bit low on infantry at the moment though.

[Diplomaticus]

I am struck by how the mere fear/threat of Moriss' over-the-top aggressiveness has effectively hamstrung the launch of Barbarossa by drawing off an impressive array of forces that Axis needs to keep on defense. Imagine what you could do with those units on the Eastern Front!

[Plaid]

I am struck by how the mere fear/threat of Moriss' over-the-top aggressiveness has effectively hamstrung the launch of Barbarossa by drawing off an impressive array of forces that Axis needs to keep on defense. Imagine what you could do with those units on the Eastern Front!

Last time I gone to the east with all this crowd. Captured Leningrad, but still was defeated badly in the very first winter.

[Diplomaticus]

Last time I gone to the east with all this crowd. Captured Leningrad, but still was defeated badly in the very first winter.

Oh, I'm not blaming you! I'm just commenting on how surprisingly effective Moriss's wildly aggressive UK strategy is--he's able to tie up all kinds of forces and thereby weaken Barbarossa just because his opponents know that he'll dare to do just about anything.

[Plaid]

We keep decimating RN, 1 more canadian DD destroyed and another - trapped.

Kriegsmarine surface ships now patrol atlantic without fear and detected average convoy near spanish coast. Will be sunk soon.



Still no sign of Barbarossa so far.

P.S. I don't think that this troops on Sicily are wasted by any means. Its nice reserve, which is always OK to have. Mech from Reggio for example can be alarmed at any moment and railed to Russia or France. SS unit can also be ferried and railed anywhere in 2 turns.

[Plaid]

Oh, I'm not blaming you! I'm just commenting on how surprisingly effective Moriss's wildly aggressive UK strategy is--he's able to tie up all kinds of forces and thereby weaken Barbarossa just because his opponents know that he'll dare to do just about anything.

Actually its not *so* effective, as it also lead to destruction of British army.
Basically I have the knowledge that both naval and ground forces mostly left MED and there is no any threat of Sicily invasion before USA entry.
I am just lazy to redeploy this troops ( and then build new defence in 1941 winter )

Even more, I know that Morris lost so many RN ships, that he hardly can land anywhere without USA help hehe.
From his messages I got that he is surprised with "large number of german subs" (though I go with pretty standard 6, not extreme like 8 ).

I have some tricky plan for Barbarossa, but all in its time!