Royal Carnage - a CptEasy multiplayer AAR

Wow, guys. Great amount of interesting thoughts and ideas. I'll try and answer the main questiones.

Filamu said:

Is the german defensive line really able to hold back the soviets? I kind of were expecting more progress on that front.
How are Hungary and the italian front in Yugoslavia going?
(I would like a overview over the eastern front if possible )
Any plans by Italy to move in the middle east and caucasus?

This is great, cant wait for next.

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The Red Army got totally stuck on the awaiting German line in the east. Unfortunately, as Britt, I don't have any screens from that front. Also, The Soviet player hadn't reached the level on upgrades on his troops he was aiming for yet.

You will have an overview picture on the entire Soviet front in next chapter, rest asure, Filamu

Baltasar said:

What about that landing in Italy, won't the British run out of supplies rather soon without a port?

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Well, supply-rules for amphibious landings are, as we have mentioned earliery, quite generous. But it is always a risk, of course.

Cybvep said:

I think it wasn't exactly that. Cpt wrote sth about a buggy NEGATIVE force requirement of breaking the NAP. Apparently, Germany didn't have any troops stationed at the SOV-GER border.

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Yes, this is a crusial point, Cybvep. In SP you never get a problem with NO enemies at the borders - and thus the system with a procentage-relation between forces to determine if you can break the pact works fine. In MP it is quite commen to avoid having troops at the border completely and instead wait a little further back. A system based on procentage obviously screws up completely if one of the factors is zero. According to the rules, I think at this point of the game, the Red Army on the front "only" needed to be larger than the German frontline-force in order to break the pact. Well, The Red Army had like 75% of it's entire army on the border facing zero germans. Those odds should, to my mind, be enough to reach pass the limits for breaking the pact. Instead, the game suggested that the Soviet forces were like -0.5% of the needed strength. It seemed to us to be a "bug of zero" and we felt forced to circumvent it (but House Ruling the Red Army to wait an enire week before moving on the Germans. They didn't, however, give Italy this lucturey...

Well - feel free to shed any light on this. As we encountered it in the middle of the game we had to solved it "ad hoc" and it might not have been the best sollution. I honestly don't know.

loki100 said:

I'm enjoying it as presented - MP is always different to SP and has to be enjoyed on different grounds. I'm also not so sure the Axis is finished. It'll be a long time before the US can really act, they've stalled the Soviet opening moves, France will collapse and that means the Soviet forces will be on the defensive in good infra provinces where the Axis have supply advantages - it could be rather hard for them to pull back with any ease. I'm not sure about Turkey - if the Soviets can grab Istanbul et al that both shores up the south flank and gives a threat to the Balkans - if the Italians hold on in the Balkans then Turkey is a threat to both the Caucasus and the Middle East

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Even though the Greece attack seemed a big mistake to me, I still agree with Loki here. The capasity of Germany is stunning. In last game, we're I did a few serious misstakes in my initial planning as Germany, the outstanding amount of troops I managed to produced covered for the holes in my planning - and in the end my enemies buckled under the onslaught. Actually, as the left hand of Wehrmacht (the east front) managed to completely stop the Red Army, we feared what would happen when France crumbled. And yes, Turkey is a little bit of a wild card. As I am beeing fearful for my Iraqi holdings, Turkey is quite high on my prioity-list.

Thelamon said:

In this game (Italy should) forget about anything Naval (no research and no production anymore) - I was tempted to say "scrap the useless RM" but for the subs.

PPS
How often a week do you guys play and when is the next update?!

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Many interesting thoughts there, Thelamon. It will surely be a good aid for next Italian player I'll just respond to a few of the things not previouly discussed.

Why do you think Italy should no try to reinforce their navy?

Our goal is to play once a week but we seldom manage due to time constrains. It's more like every 10-14 days and we play about 3 hours each time, which usually covers two months.... so each game takes at least a quarter of a rl-year. We'll see when I post next chapter. I would guess Sunday or Monday.




Cheers!

Royal Carnage

Chapter XI, The Battle of France - Part VII












Human Players: Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, USA, Soviet









Recap: Not long ago, the war conisted of Germany attack France who was supported by Great Britain and a few minor comonwealth countries. Now, however, the entire world have joined the war within a few months - USA, Soviet, Italy and Japan. Global Carnage is awaiting...

p.s. And a big up to my parents in law who've given me an afternoon off from parental duties, resulting in an extra long chapter for you














April 26th, 1940

The Russian Front. In the north, the Red Army and Wehrmacht are fighting a sitz-krieg, not really doing anything. Neither have the force to dislodge the other. South of neutral Hungary, Soviet/Bulgaria are fighting a chaotic war with Italy/Greece/Turkey winning some but losing a little more. The Allies have extremely scares access of reliable information of the strength relations but from the Soviet side, the messages are thick with worry – bordering to panic. The British leadership hopes, however, that the attack on Rome will pull at the Italian attention.

Also, the Allies have a few more surprises up their sleeves…













April 30th, 1940

Red Circle: The Brits won the battle of the harbor. This forced the Italian fleet on repair here out in the Med and into a most unfavorable naval battle where they lost a few ships. With the port in British hands, the real attack on Rome could be initiated – theoretically…

Blue Circle: Italian forces scrambling from the south have managed to break the siege of Rome. With this, the hope of succeeding with the operation objectives are more or less lost.

Yellow Circle: The Italian rush to relieve Rome has left them weaker in other locations. The Americans entered the war-zone with un-opposed landing in Napoli. The only Italian division close by is far too weak to threat the American Army Corps.

Authors note: My planning of the operation on Rome was made in a rush and had a lot of flaws. I used too few troops and had not really thought about the air-space, which Axis soon came to dominate. I actually realized quite quickly the operation was doomed, but as American forces were inbound – secondary objectives sprung up…













April 30th, 1940

The Americans had also done a landing in Sicily, conquered a harbor and were heading for the other ports. With so much going on in the rest of Italy, the Italians had no chance of sending reinforcements this way.













May 10th, 1940

Paris still holds but France is falling apart. Still, they are not worse than that they have attacked and gained ground in the Italian mountains. That front, however, does not mean much. The Brits are still clinging on to Normandy, but as the Germans have been sneaking around the River Seine, they do not have any hopes of actually holding the ground – just delaying the inevitable.













May 21st, 1940

Sicily has fallen to the Americans after 1 month of battle. The Italians forces in Palermo did not yield easily, and also, the American equipment and training was inferior to that of the Italians. The Americans had not tried to cross the sound. They had simply no hope of winning an amphibious attack against the Italians.

On Malta, the Brits had massed an Army Corps, both including brand new divisions and some taken from northern Africa. They had a new mission coming up. It was not on a scale as an operation, but still an important one.













May 23rd, 1940

The British Operation in Rome had ended in a failure. Due to fierce Axis bombings the casualty-ratio was high. At one point it seemed three British Divisions would be surrounded and lost but a small scale amphibious rescue attacked opened up an escape route and two of the three divisions managed to retreat to the American sector – albeit in a very bad state.

Seen as an individual Operation, the attack on Rome was a disaster. As things turned out, it opened up for the Americans and hopefully relieved the Russians somewhat.

The Napoli pocket was still a bit weak to hold off a forceful Italian counter-attack, but with Sicily taken, the Americans had reinforcements inbound.













May 23rd, 1940

Italy was not the only place with Allied land-gains. In the wake of a stronger Russian offensive, smaller Allied units moved into Turkey. Initially, there were no Turks in the east but as they moved deeper into Turkey they showed up and the fast marsh was halted. Greek units had been deployed to support the Turks and by that, the Allied units came to a more or less complete halt. Still, they tied up a lot of Axis units, making it easier for the Red Army.

The Allied had little interests in Turkey as a land, as long as it was not hostile. So as long as the Russians won, all was well. The British units did try, however, to take some of the areas with some valuable resources.













May 24th, 1940

May was a very hectic month. With an amphibious landing, the British forces who had prepared in Malta, fell the Italians guarding the Straits of Messina in the back. The Italian forces were already in a sorry state. The Napoli-pocket had obviously cut of the supply line to these forces and they were short on food and ammunition. This would not be a long battle and another two Italian divisions would soon surrender. The Straits of Messina would soon belong to the Allies.

With this, the two divisions of Royal Marines had entered battle for the first time, letting the world know of their existence.













May, 1940

It was not free of risk for Royal Navy to operate in the Mediterranean Sea. During May they had several more clashes with the Regia Marina. The Royal Navy won them all, sending the various Italian taskforces limping back to port. In the Northern Tyrrhenian Sea the Royal Navy took its first losses with a destroyer flotilla and the light cruiser HMS Glasgow being sunk. The Italians took so fearsome losses, however, that they were no longer thought off as a major threat. They could still be a skulking menace and their submarines still sunk a few convoys once in a while, but they could no longer threat the British naval superiority in the Mediterranean Sea.

It seemed that the Americans sunk some Italian ships as well.

Being so aggressive on land, the Allies came to the conclusion that Italy simply did not consider the navy an important branch of the military. Probably their focus lay on land and air. Well… they would surely need to be strong on land now…

Royal Navy had no presence in Asia, letting the Imperial Japanese Navy roam free. The Americans, on the other side, had already had several naval clashes with them. Apparently, the IJN was a lot more formidable foe than Regia Marina and the Americans lost more than they sunk.

Authors note: The lack of reports from the Pacific is due to the complete lack of RN presence. Japan have taken some Allied territory in Indonesia so far, without any resistance. I did not even try to defend Hong Kong and Kuching.













June 3rd-6th, 1940

From the airports in Napoli the British naval bombers had the range to reach the remnants of da Zara’s initially so proud taskforce which now had gotten stuck in Viterbo with the Royal Navy prowling outside. A destroyer flotilla and the heavy cruiser “da Zara” was hit by torpedoes and sunk. Bomber command was not certain whether the light cruiser Alberico was finally sunk or not. The great battleship Andrea Doria was hit by one torpedo, but did not go down. The battleships had a very strong anti aircraft capability and the naval bombers took losses trying to hit them. Finally, Axis interceptors showed up and chased the already decimated bombers away.

Without any other screen or backup, the two battleships would have big problems to leave the port without being in serious trouble.













June 4th, 1940

The early summer was very intense around the Med. After securing the Straits of Messina, the British amphibious force sailed up to the Gulf of Taranto and landed around the city of Taranto – at the heel of the Italian boot. As the attack commenced, the Brits had to deal with starved Italian soldiers surrendering in heaps. Apparently, even if RN had quite few subs around for raiding missions, the Italians did not manage to supply their units south of the Napoli pocket. The battle of Taranto turned out to be a very short affair.

With the victory of Taranto, another 3 Italian divisions were captured and entire southern Italy in Allied hands. Allied intelligence is not entirely sure how much the Italians have lost, but it is about 9 or 10 divisions. Several of those might just consist of two brigades but it is still a considerable loss for Italy.













June 5th, 1940

Status of the European theatre of war

1. France is losing more and more. Paris is lost and the French government is on the brink of surrender. Soon, this battle will be over, the front dead and thus, the Germans will have powerful troop formations free to use elsewhere. When this happen, the Allies/Commies are in for dark days.

2. The French, however, have managed to take some provinces from Italy; the punch-bag of Europe.

3. American Forces have landed in Sardinia. Italy has about two divisions and a HQ here. They will not last very long. Still, the American soldiers are inferior so even winning battles take a lot longer than you could expect.

4. Southern Italy is secured. There are no Italian forces left here and the Allies are consolidating.

5.The Red Army was initially pushed back in the northern part of their Yugoslavian front but as since the British attack on Rome, things have changed and the Italians have retreated back to better defensive positions behind the river. Neither side seem to have strength to attack across the river.

6.Turkey is slowly losing, both from the east and the west. A Russian attack on Istanbul was aborted after painful losses, however. In the east, the Turks have troubles to stop the Allied/Commie invasion but the going is slow

Finally, and not surprising, the German/Soviet line has not moved. Nothing is likely to happen here before the fall of France – and then it will be a one way ticket eastwards, unfortunately. At least for the time being.

To sum up – Allies/Commies are winning or waiting on all fronts but the French front. When they fall, Germany will get the initiative and then anything can happen. We cannot do much more than try to find as good defensive lines as possible and be prepared for anything. Also, we can continue to nibble at the Axis and get small victories here and there. These gains will be valuable when the bleeding days comes… within short.













June 9th, 1940

Finally, after more than 9 months of the German attack on Belgium, France succumbs, with Vichy France being created instead. The BEF is making its last stand, losing Caen after a bloody battle. Now, they only try and orderly retreat through Cherbourg, with the Channel Islands as an emergency escape route. The Germans however, are more interested in moving elsewhere and they actually, during the next following days, refrain from attacking the retreating BEF, who is soon out of France. The year-long British expeditionary operation in France is now over.

Germany will now need time to reorganize their western forces. Some will be needed to stay, undoubtedly, but a majority will be sent to other theatres. Within a few weeks, Allied and/or Commie fronts will feel this new German surge in a most painful way – depending on the strategy of Wehrmacht. The ball is the German court…




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