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Hehe here's hoping that the Italians don't send in a single Marine division to Malta to wipe out that stack with all their penalties.
 
Hehe here's hoping that the Italians don't send in a single Marine division to Malta to wipe out that stack with all their penalties.

I have to remember that it works both ways. Next time I'll send in a couple Marine divisions (if I can protect the transports).

Have you set alliede objective for the British in Africa or maybe on the boot with you?

You can do that? Does that work? I mean ... no, not yet, I'm waiting for just the right moment.


Wow! Thanks! I appreciate the honor.

The convoys are from occupied Sicily? good!

Yup!
 
Just wanted to let you know that I am enjoying this AAR and look forward to seeing what the Canadian workhorse can accomplish!
 
Yeah you can do that, and yes it works :) A good way to get troops :D

Well, I definitely have to give it a try, then. Might take a bit as I play ahead some.

Just wanted to let you know that I am enjoying this AAR and look forward to seeing what the Canadian workhorse can accomplish!

Thanks! We're gonna find out a bit right now.
 
Chapter Twelve - Africa

I hear the drums echo in the night...

So the British are packing Malta with troops. Time to get a move on then. My plan is to jump into Africa in a few places near Malta, force the Italians to pull back, then let the British advance from Egypt. Granted, this depends a bit more on the AI than I'd like, but if the British are sending serious forces to Malta, I don't think they're landing on the Italian homeland. So I'll help them in Egypt, indirectly.



The Italians appear to have two units in Tripoli, and one in Misurata, and since I'm just trying to provoke an overreaction, I choose Misurata. And don't say I don't learn from my mistakes, two Dieppes is enough. For now.



Maybe there are numbers I'm just not showing here, but I get a sense why I'm not bouncing Garrison troops around like they are pesants with pitchforks. They look like decent infantry.



Maybe I was wrong about that, too. We won quickly with 80 dead on their side and 40 on ours. More importantly, the invasion produced the Italian reaction I was hoping for, Garrison troops (Speed = 1) marching to war.



We achieve another pointless Artillery advance, and are near to completing our final one. In retrospect, I wish I'd never researched Artillery, and frankly, I'd license DDs as well. There are techs we really use, Infantry, Industry, supply, and we're behind where we could be because I have wasted time on items which I'm going to abandon or already have. I kept expecting I'd catch up in necessities and need to branch out to avoid ahead of time penalties. Hah! I'm Canada. That should never have worried me. If I were doing it all again, I'd do base infantry, special forces, Industry, Supply, those weird techs I'm learning I needed (less time between attacks and 5% boost to reinforcements joining the battle) and pretty much nothing else. Ah well, it's not even 1941, I can apply these lessons going forward.



Misurata is taken, and while it's only a level one port, this isn't Sicily, and I'm not planning to conquer all of Africa. Make the Italians come to me, run away, let the Brits benefit from the weakened defenses. That doesn't mean I'm done, however, and I move more forces from Sicily to North Africa.



I do have DD screens with my two local transports (two more transports are kept safe in Halifax). I have decided that my minimum defense in Sicily is one barebones 2-brigade division in each port, and the mountain Corps in Messina. Hopefully I can keep the enemy in Italy itself with my mighty fleet. By the way, I don't believe I've ever seen any sign of Italian or German planes in Africa, other than the airfield which appears to be occupied. The enemy continues to harrass my destroyers, and as nice as this two-hour battle progresses, they are whittling away at my fleet by damaging ships and running away.



My three divisions near Tripoli spread out. One tries to drive the two garrison brigades further east, but I quickly give up, re-confirming that garrison troops are decent fighters. Not weak enough for one Canadian divison to drive two Italian garrison divisions before them, anyway. And here is the other half of what I was hoping. As I said, I expect to attack and run away, but this is the other part of the overreaction I was hoping for, the defenders closer to Egypt come running to chase me away.



Then, of course, I got greedy.



Taking Tripoli adds three VPs to the five I picked up in Sicily, Bengazi, when we get there, adds another. The second Armored Car brigade is due November 16, so we'll have a two-brigade division for racing around Africa, I hope. I don't see my Armored Cars fighting too often, but covering vast distances is why I wanted ACs. In the meantime, when it turns out there were regular army Italian divisons near Bengazi, I grabbed more men from Sicily.



I have to admit, by this point my original plan of hit-and-run was a thing of the past. The Italians are not thick on the ground, and they're doing a poor job of guarding the sources of their supply. I also noticed somewhere in here that it had been ages since I'd lost a convoy. The Mediteranean is turning into an Allied pond, slowly but surely. Then, of course, I got a little happy.



An attack like this is only really harmful if you let it go on long enough to weaken your units, or if you really needed to attack somewhere else and you used up your attack ability. I ended the battle, and didn't really have anyone else to attack, anyway. Still, it's an indication that I'm not technically superior to Italy, and I'll need to make sure I attack or defend under the best of circumstances. They have more men than I do. Identical losses will kill me in the long run. In the midst of this battle, the tech I really need increases, supply production hits level five, +25%. I gave up the battle pretty quickly, having killed 230 and lost 330.

Well, it's only been two weeks since we moved on North Africa, but we've already made some big changes in the overall picture.



Hopefully, the UK will do something useful with all those troops Auchinleck had in Malta. I could use a little help. Right now I'm the only one really fighting these guys!
 
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What's the situation over in Yugoslavia and Greece? Now that you might have the chance to shatter the Italians in Libya you could score some real hits on mainland Italy, since they're occupied with three fronts. I wonder what's Germany doing up there, tho.
 
What's the situation over in Yugoslavia and Greece? Now that you might have the chance to shatter the Italians in Libya you could score some real hits on mainland Italy, since they're occupied with three fronts. I wonder what's Germany doing up there, tho.

Funny you should ask, Yugo screenshot in update tomorrow. Hint: it's not a huge surprise.
 
Just started reading this AAR - it's the first AAR I've read in years and it's excellent :). Am playing a game as Australia at the moment - I recommend a few of those allied objectives, a few expeditionary forces to help you help them isn't a bad thing ;).
 
Just started reading this AAR - it's the first AAR I've read in years and it's excellent :). Am playing a game as Australia at the moment - I recommend a few of those allied objectives, a few expeditionary forces to help you help them isn't a bad thing ;).

Thanks! I will definitely see what the objectives can do. No way I can take on Italy in Italy proper without help, well, not if I want manpower every again.
 
Chapter Thirteen - Co-Operation

When last we looked, Canada was the only Ally in possession of enemy home territory, and was working hard to help the British beat the Italians in north Africa. We'd taken Tripoli and Bengazi without much fighting. The Italians appeared to be reacting to our invasion, which ought to open things up for the stack of British forces we saw earlied on Malta. The German invasions of Yugoslavia and Greece had stripped the toe of Italy of its German units, and we have a fleet of three to five destroyer flotillas guarding the Straits of Messina. Well, it looks as though the British are off to do something, Malta is empty.



Meanwhile, Bengazi is a nice port, four undamaged levels and one coming back. Plus I captured a nice pile of supplies. The best part of any operation like this is that every grab for the good guys takes the same resource away from the bad guys. Right now, the Italians are all being supplied from Tobruk, which is not nearby, and ought to be strained either now or before too long.



More important than all of this, the Brits are moving. Presumably from the shame of being outshone for so long by their former colony, the birthplace of the greatest sport on earth.



On the 12th of November we drove off another single DD flotilla which Italy sent to the Straits of Messina. On the 14th we attempted to cut off the western Italian desert from all supplies. We do this by driving southwest from just south of Bengazi. It would have split Italian north Africa in half. This didn't work out so well.



Would have been nice, however, I'll wait for them to clear out and try again. The other provinces in the area, further inland, have too low infrastructure to allow movement. I assume the same goes for supplies.

On the 16th, as expected, our second Amored Car brigade is completed and we form the two brigades into a division and ship them immediately to North Africa. The men have been training on the existing ACs, so they'll just have to get organized when they arrive. They're not expected to lead the fight, just cover ground.

Meanwhile in Yugoslavia, the Germans have covered half their ground, and seem to have destroyed all serious opposition.



The British, with an airforce Canada can only dream of, are marching across Africa. This is a process which always takes a great deal of time. The only way to make rapid progress is by sea.



After an abortive attempt to move inland east of Bengazi, we decide to hold there, and try to split the Italians with a sea landing between the Tripoli area and Bengazi. We manage to find an area of the desert which is not as empty as we were hoping it would be.



After shouting "show yourselves, we know someone's there!" we give that landing up as a bad idea. Then the Italians counter-attack south of Bengazi, in Agedabia.



I realize that, while those marines cannot attack again for a week, they can defend right away. Let's just hope that they get into the line of battle before the retreat is sounded.



I will say this, while the men do not appear in the line of battle, they add their numbers to the overall battle progress number. It now looks like we cannot lose, but I've seen that turn to defeat before. Not this time. The Italians see which way the battle is going and call it off, losing 900 men to our casualties of 400. On the 22nd of November, Germany conquers Yugoslavia. I wouldn't hold my breath for Greece, but I was quite amused when the Greeks offered me a trade deal in the days after the fall of Yugoslavia. Not much point guys, sorry.

Canadian Agriculture hits level six! We now have +60% to Manpower. I only wish that meant more. With the losses we've already taken we effectively have negative manpower. We have zero and need about one and a half just for replacements. Italian mountain troops are driven off east of Bengazi. There are quite a few men south and east of the port, but right now we seem pretty secure. Still, we'd pushed two provinces east of Bengazi, and pull the victorious division east to consolidate. We do try to expand in the area east of our Tripoli holdings moving to the edge of the accessible desert and trying to trap some Italian units.

That's small beans, though. Italy gets all of its supllies through Tobruk, and even a competent commander would be in a confused state facing several Canadian invasions and a re-inforced and re-invigorated British army. And we're not up against a particularly competent commander in north Africa.



As a punishment for getting cocky and stripping Sicily of most of its defenders, the Italians send two heavy cruisers against our three destroyer flotillas in the Straits of Messina. The nickel and dime attacks we face do real damage to our destroyers and some were off for repairs. The Italian CAs Fiume and Balzano inflict some damage then depart, probably to avoid an encounter with the British.

Meanwhile, it turns out that I ought to have landed directly in Tobruk, which was vacant. So it's a race for the port. Yes, I can clearly win a race against the Italians I can see. It's the Italians I can't see who are worrying me. That's always true. Good advice. Be very afraid of Italians you cannot see.



Now below you'll see the division I meantioned earlier which I was trying to trap and capture. I'd driven them from where they are now, and forced them to retreat iirc. Nonetheless, as this battle screen shows, they're on the offensive as I took their destination before they got to it. So Canada and Italy will try a bit of round-robin combat. I'm showing the more interesting battle in Sidrah, from which our division is attacking south.



We lose two of the three fights quickly, losing 250 men and inflicting only 75 casualties. On the other hand, on December 2nd we won the race for Tobruk. Now this might take some time to play out, but unless Italy can retake a port, they're effectively dead in Cyrenaica and the rest of north Africa. We won the remaining battle of the three round-robin fights, allowing us to keep our position in the depths of the desert.



As you can see at the top of this shot, we're abandoning Sidrah, pulling our exhausted men back but still maintaining a solid line. We're also shipping more troops to Tobruk. All we really have to do is hold on in the four ports and combine with the UK to eliminate the remaining Italians. Italy, seeing a disaster coming perhaps, decided Eight Million Bayonettes. I'd take a quarter million rifles if it were offered.

Hoping to make something of our recent successes, we attack south of Bengazi, again trying to divide the Italians into two.



The Italians start off the battle healthy. Note again that we're only taking on the enemy who are not moving to another of their own provinces. However, overnight the Italians run out of supply...



... and it shows



We win, but the battle results did not pop up, though all boxes are still selected for land combat ending. In the east, the British have reached Tobruk, taking their first bit of enemy territory that I have seen them possess in north Africa. Canada has deprived the entire Italian North-African Army of supplies, and the UK and Canada are in the process of eliminating Italy in that sphere!

 
Italy, seeing a disaster coming perhaps, decided Eight Million Bayonettes. I'd take a quarter million rifles if it were offered.

Hehe well, you still need somebody to be able to hand those rifles to, and it sounds like you don't anymore. Nice work in North Africa though.
 
I've just stumbled accross this (alas, I'm not on the HoI board very often) and read through everything in the last few hours, very good stuff. As you know, I loved Last Tango and this is proving just as much of an action and wit packed read. Great to see your occupation of Sicily and now Northern Africa, you are putting the rest of the Allies to shame! Consider me very much subscribed. Oh and...

Presumably from the shame of being outshone for so long by their former colony, the birthplace of the greatest sport on earth

I had no idea Canada invented football (I refuse to call it soccer! Oh, I just did...)!