North America Series Game #5 - AAR (multiplayers)

[KevinG]

Red Dawn

Part 2:

The Americans thought they were safe from the world. They thought they could behind their oceans and their navy. They thought it couldn't happen to them. They were wrong.



October 18th, having seized the entire west coast of America, the only place left to go was east. While Yamashita's 2nd Army Group trudged through the vast Arizona and Nevada deserts, an unsuspecting invasion of Guatemala took place. The Allies were in such disarray that they didn't even notice the IJN sneaking down central America.

October 30th, the Empire declared war on Panama and landed stormtroopers by the canal. The American garrisons were caught completely off guard and were forced to surrender along with the rest of Panama. The doorway to the East was now open.

November 17th, Mexico is incorporated into the Greater North American Co-Prosperity Sphere

November 24th, Operation Red Dawn enters its second stage. Marines storm an undefended New York City and Boston. An Imperial Flag is hoisted over the Statue of Liberty as Imperial troops continue to pour into lower Manhattan.

December 1st, Florida is invaded in order to secure the southern supply lanes en route to New York.

December 2nd, a panzer brigade meets the first sign of US resistance in Washington DC. A lone national guard cavalry divisions is all that stands between Japanese panzers and the capital of the United States.

December 4th, The battle of Delaware Bay begins as IJN carriers are attacked by the remaining US fleet off the coast of DC. The Death Star 1 was sitting in port in New York, but Grand Admiral Yamamoto believed Ozawa's fleet would be more than a match for the rebel US ships and he chose not to sally out.

December 5th, the White House is burned to the ground for the second time in history as Kaneoka's panzers capture the capitol. A national guard division of tanks that just completed training outside the city was now trapped before it could even finish supplying.

December 6th, the entire carrier fleet of the Royal Navy arrived to lend support to their beleaguered US counterparts. The American turkeyshoot suddenly became an Imperial rout. For his shortsightedness and failure, Yamamoto was demoted to commanding the battlefleet, while Mikawa assumed his new position as commander of the Death Star.

December 9th, the combined fleet sails out looking to avenge their loss a few days earlier. Strangely, the British carriers aren't present.

December 11th, the star destroyers of the IJN were recombined into the Death Star 2. The Death Star 2 would continue to enforce the blockade while the Death Star 1 was sent on a faraway secret mission..........

December 17th, the BEF managed to break through the blockade and land safely in Virginia. It seemed that the BEF was comprised of the best motorized and armoured units of the British Empire. They began a fierce counter attack on Washington DC while attempting to break through the flanks of the city and encircle it. Fortunately the timely arrival of Italian dive bomber squadrons (not pictured) turned the tide of battle and disintegrated all British armour within a 250km radius of Washington.

December 23rd, an invasion is attempted to take the last remaining port in the Eastern United States and cut off the BEF. Nimitz's carriers along with ground based air support inflict terrible losses on the transports that the Death Star was assigned to protect, and the invasion is called off. The port in Norfolk is eventually captured by ground forces, but the BEF managed to escape.

December 29th, the entire southern coast is invaded simultaneously. Literally every port in North America to Central America is under Imperial control.

December 31st, panzers of the Northern army and Southern force begin to link up and create a massive pocket of Allied troops.

February 1st, the two armies link up, and some American resistance forces that call themselves "The Wolverines" attempt to break out and continue the fight in the midwest.

February 4th VA (Victory Axis) day, the Allies surrender.

 

[Tallfellow]

Damn didn't see that happening. Looks like this is a Axis win. The Allies are done and the USSR doesn't stand a chance on their own.

 

[LoftenHenderson]

holy crap :/

 

[confinement]

Yeah, that's what I said.

The USA was geared to be at combat readiness with its navy by DEC '40, and ground forces by FEB '41. Unfortunately, that was about 5 months too late. TFH has changed the way naval battles are sought, defended, and resolved. 68 ship "Death Stars" pretty much go where they want to, and do whatever they like.

Some folks call that gaming. It's really more like playing Call Of Duty, and having all of the cheat codes.

 

[Mycalle]

Chapter 4: Operation Barbarossa!

Session 4-5 (June 14th to December 18th 1940)



The redeployment of our forces to the eastern front was a massive undertaking one which took months to finalize and our operational start date is set for June 22nd our allies have been informed of this deadline and will act accordingly in response to it. The overall Forces are to be split into 3 army groups each commanding a certain region of space for which they will operate almost exclusively in, Rommel's 1st Armor core now commands 3 panzer cores under central regional command, while further south 2nd army holds 2 more panzer core's with 5 Inf corps. 1st Army under General Manstein will push forward through central russia with 5 corps, 4th army under General Hussuer consisting of 4 Infantry corps and 2 marine cores push north their target Leningrad. In the south 2nd Army is givin special orders to work closely with the Romanian Army High Command, overall just under 1 million men will take part in this great crusade to rid the world of communism once and for all.

On June 28th 1940, we declare war upon the Soviet Union, attacks are immediately launched on all German-Russian fronts. Our faithful ally Romania will hold and if possible push the front lines in the south, Mussolini has given us his assurances that our backdoor is safe, the Italians will prevent any attempt by the allies to invade through Italy or southern Europe allowing us to devote all our resources to defeating Stalin. In Russia we will focus on the key cities of Leningrad and Moscow, and ideally hold both of them by this time early next year. It would be good to capture them before the year is out but the Russian winter is harsh and there borders are heavily fortified. It is even argued by some on the council that they may be preparing an attack of their own, there threatening posture in regards to their weak claim on Bessaria with the Romanian's, lends considerable weight to this theory. Our advantage however is in our troops superiority both in training and the machines of war, our blitzkrieg tactics should overwhelm them before they can muster any major counter maneuvers , they do have numbers on their side however, it should be a long, hard conflict.


August 3rd 1940, breakthrough! on all fronts, the speed of our advance has even surprised our great leader, within a month all major russian lines have broken down and our armor cores our making massive advances into open terrain. The Russians seem to have not prepared any secondary lines of defense, this mistake will cost them dearly as we envelope millions of soviets troops to slow to escape the closing pockets.


September 30th 1940, Leningrad and most importantly Moscow is surrounded and cut off, with 2nd army in the south closing in on Stalingrad, Stalin's days are numbered.





October 14th 1940, The Soviet Union falls!

 

[LoftenHenderson]

that was fast

 

[ThePastfinder]

I'm a bit overdo for this, but...

China 1936-37

Intel shows the Japanese preparation.

My build: Militia (duh), a handful of AA, and a mountain corps.

The first mistake I made was taking the wrong decision in an early event with Guangxi. Normally a NatChi player would take some coastal provinces in the south. The event description doesn't make the outcomes clear and all my SP China experience was in ComChi and Japan, so I had no idea. The smaller front might've helped, but I kept 3 small corps on the border since I thought Japan would invade there.

Between reorganizing all the divisions from binary into triangle, reassigning all leaders, and all the other management at speed 4 & 5, preparation took a lot longer than expected. By the time Marco Polo happened, only half my units had generals. This wouldn't be bad in FTM, but it's very bad in TFH. Assigning leaders cuts org in half.

Beijing at July 1st. Surely this would hold for a little while? (spoiler alert: it didn't)

The war begins. Another change in TFH: The only other state at war with Japan is Shanxi. Not even Mao helps.

Marines easily storm the beaches. He had to pull back some because of a rule (no landing on hills) but it made little difference.

After my lines are broken, it's all bad news.

At this point I realize Guangxi doesn't matter. July 14:

Battle of Shanghai. As you can see, they still lack leaders.

The north army is trapped. I don't have access through Shanxi. wtf?

At least my fleet raided for quite a while, until disappearing with my last port.

What a mess. Half my army is dead and the rest are trying to fall back to the last VPs.

It's too late. Japanese cav bypassed through Shanxi and went all the way to my last capital. The war is over in a couple of months...

Okay, that sucked. Here's what I should've done:

• Test NatChi before the game. I was mainly thinking of the Germany co-op, and thought ComChi/Japan experience sufficed.
• Not build a mountain corps. China doesn't have the resources so it's not worth it, even for all that mountain terrain. I don't think I even finished it.
• Get leader assignment done first thing. TFH is much less forgiving on this.
• Withdraw in time. Had I held another line inland, it could've gone much better. Supply gets to be a real problem for Japan then.
• Oh yeah, and turn off a lot of unnecessary popups. Major events, naval combat, and sometimes air combat is about all you need in MP.

After the Chinese debacle, I managed Australia for a session while its usual player was gone. Yes, they trust me that much.

The Australian battle plans were impressive, but I felt like making an addition in the North Atlantic before moving on to Germany:

 

[Gen. Marshall]

:rofl: You should have written "xxx - Germany" below that.

 

[BigPoppa1111]

Italian Prologue:

When Il Douche came to power, Italy was still struggling with ghosts of the past. Previous administrations had tried to regain the Italian glory immediately. Il Douche was not under this delusion. By 1936, it became apparent that a major shift in strategic thinking was long overdue. Previous leaders envisioned a Regia Marina that would one day, be able to challenge the French and British for control of the Mediterranean. Il Douche knew this was nothing but wishful thinking. The RM could beat the French (hell who can't?), but challenging the British for control of the Med was akin to a distant desert mirage. You travel hope filled towards its liquid goodness, only to find out when you get close that it was just the shimmering armor of the latest British naval monstrosity. A monstrosity that is bigger, better, badder, faster, and stronger than anything that Italy could build. Il Douche knew that aircraft carriers were going to be the wave of the future. Air power was going to soon dominate warefare, over the land and sea both. His naval attaches' argued that Italy should invest deeply into aircraft carriers, even though our tech was woefully behind. Il Douche did not discount their logic, only their recommendations. Why should Italy waste precious resources on aircraft carriers? With the Italian holdings throughout the Med, all we needed was to build a few more airstrips in key locations, and Italy would itself be a massive aircraft carrier.

Thus Il Douche scrapped plans for any new expansion of the Regia Marina. Ships in production would be allowed to finish, but after that, Italian industry would focus on building light aircraft. Il Douche envisoned a two-prong approach. First, he wanted first class fighter/interceptors, planes that could match the British land and carrier based fighters blow for blow. Controlling the skies would be critical for success on the land and the sea. He wasn't going to scrap the Regia Marina, like his hard core airforce advisors suggested, but if it were to be useful, Italy would have to make sure British carrier bombers never made it to our ships. Second, he wanted to use some of the same light aircraft technology to build small bombers. These would be short range craft, but combined with expansion of air fields in Sicily, we would be able to control the strategic passages around Sicily. He reasoned that these bombers could also be useful in close combat support operations on land as well. In fact, his generals were already warming up to the idea of having "tank busters" flying overhead. These build programs would be expensive, and to field the massive amount of aircraft Il Douche requested corners would have to be cut in bomber pilot training, but Il Douche also reasoned that having control of the skies and close support aircraft would allow industries to forgoe building significant amount of anti-tank weapons as well.

So Il Douche's vision of a Grand Airforce were starting to come together. Construction immediately began on the CAS. Pilot training was cut to minimal. They would get plenty of practice bombing British convoys and anti-sub fleets. After 20 CAS were spit out, Il Douche ordered the CAS production halted and Interceptor production to begin. However, fighter pilots would need to be trained, and trained well. This increased the cost of production, but it would pay back in spades by not having to continually recruit highly-skilled fighter pilots. Once the specialised training was reinstituted, Il Douche also began a big push to make the army more professional. Existing Blackshirt militias and lessor trained regiments were sent back into training camps to receive specialized training in Mountain, Marine, and Airborne operations. Although poorly equipped, these militias had earned their stripes in the Ethiopian liberation campaign of 1936. Additionally, more divisions of regular infantry were recruited to satisfy the anticipated needs of Il Douche in the coming great war.

After production of 15 Interceptors, Il Douche ordered training cut, and switched all production back to CAS. All available Italian industry would gear towards producing these bombers, until total Italian CAS wings numbers 50. This was the number Il Douche felt necessary to create, what he termed was, a 250km "No Sail Zone" around any Italian territory. Once these CAS were built, Italian industry built even more interceptor wings, enough for all of the world to recognize the greatness of Italy's airforce. It was purely a first-class organization, second to none in size and skill to any power in the world. This airforce proved itself time and time again. After Britain saw the power of the 20 CAS airforce, it abandoned Mediterranean operations, never to return. Both British and American armored units felt its fury when the CAS wings were dispatched to support Japanese operations in America. And the British realized the obsoleteness of its navy when our CAS forces caused over 40 of its ships to sink in combined Mediterranean and English Channel operations. The Allies were powerless to stop the massive rain of artillery shells from the air because of the elite interceptor coverage provided by the RA's fighter wings. "Shooting fish in a barrell" was the common remark from our pilots when asked about dogfights with English airplanes. The Allied Powers seemingly had no answer to Italy's airforce awesomeness.

In the end, Il Douche used airpower to achieve what Italians had not since the time of the Cesars. And that was control over most of the ancient Roman empire. Italian glory spread from Rome west through Spain, with Gibralatar under assault and sure to fall. It spread south through Africa, encompassing the former French colonies of Tunis, Algeria, and Morroco, and into Egypt. It spread east out of Rome through Switzerland, Yugoslavia, Albania, and parts of Greece. The Italians emerged stronger, more united, and victorious, basking in the glow of the new found hegemony and glory that it had spread. With the shackles of "naval greatness" cast off, and Italy free to adapt to the modern age of warfare, Il Douche firmly planted Italy among the great powers of the 20th century.

 

[Paglia]

RĂZBOIUL SFÂNT CONTRA BOLŞEVISMULUI
(The Holy War against Bolshevism)
August 14^th 1940 – February 5^th 1941
NEW POST DECEMBER 11^th
NORTH AMERICA SERIES GAME #5


Players (9/11): AXIS (Germany (2), Italy, Japan & Romania), ALLIES (UK & USA), KOMINTERN (USSR (2))

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MOARTEA LUI BOLSHEVISME (BOLSHEVISM DEATH)​

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The Battle of the pocket of Ochakiv
Buna Vestire
August 1940


August 14th: Stavka declares the Great Patriotic War. All Russians are enlisted, by force if needed, to save Mother Russia against the barbarian hordes.


August 15th: War Cabinet meets again on Plan Pentru Patrie . War Cabinet anticipates a long war against Bolshevism and, given this premise, doesn’t adjust the plan to include war objectives beyond the capture of Rostov na Don. The capture of Caucasus is discussed as a potential additional expansion, but nothing more.



Operation Pentru Patrie revealed

August 17th: The Battle of Ochakiv is underway. Tanks, on both sides, engage in multiple skirmishes. The large plains North of Odessa offer a wide range of possibilities to armoured units. Cavalerie Corp impresses the War Cabinet by its dedication and courage. Every members of the unit will be granted, by Conducãtor Antonescu himself, the Cruciada împotriva comunismului ("Crusade Against Communism”) medal, to honour their bravery during this battle that sealed the fate of Soviet Union.


August 18th: Australia is conquered by Japan.


August 20th: Romanians prevail over the Soviet in the Battle of Ochakiv. More than 20 Soviet elite brigades are destroyed during the process. 60 000 are taken as POW. The blow is a major one for the Soviet Union in the Black Sea area.



The Battle of Ochakiv

August 29th: Finland joins the crusade against Bolshevism. Finish Ambassador is welcomed by Conducãtor Antonescu himself. Military aid is discussed.





The Big Push, from Rostov na Don to Stalingrad and Baki
Buna Vestire
September 1940 – October 1940



August 23rd: The Cavalerie Corp is asked to exploit the breach in the Soviet Union front. Its Divizies, designed for such a task, rush toward Rostov na Don and Sevastopol. Small pockets of Soviet laggards are clean up along the way. Romanians encountered no resistance on their way to Rostov na Don. The Bear is broken.


September 1st: War Cabinet extends Grupa Armata Antonescu war objectives. Now the Army Group must also take Stalingrad and the whole Caucasus. Armata Grupa Tataranu is created. His mission is to pacify the conquered regions in Soviet Union.


September 4th: Mihail Moruzov, Head of Secret Services, reports that its services tracked and killed Leon Trotsky. The news is seen as a major victory of Romania underground war.


September 9th: Greece finally surrenders to Romania and Italy.


September 14th: War is declared against Turkey, as Plan Pădurea de amicii (The Forest of Pales) has been approved by the Cabinet.



September 15th: Turkish border garrisons are quickly defeated. Outmatched, the Turkish quickly establish a line of defence on the Southern shore of Istanbul. Romanians secure the Dardanelles Strait in the South, allowing troops to cross in Middle-East. --- Grupa Armata Antonescu is making steady progress toward Stalingrad and Caucasus.


September 26th: Forţele Aeriene Regale ale României launches multiple air missions against the Soviet Fleet. Soviet submarines are systematically spotted and hunt down. After 2 weeks of constant attacks, 4 submarines are deemed sunk in the Black Sea.


September 29th: Romanians land troops behind Istanbul. This is the 1st amphibious assault mounted by the Forţele Navale Române, under the direct command of Horia Macellariu, Minister of the Navy. Every boats that could float, from Athens to Constanta, has been commandeered for this operation. As SHBB Antonescu is still under construction, it could not participate in the operation.


September 30th: Japan starts the invasion of the Pacific Coast of the US. President Roosevelt calls for the defence of the Nation.


October 2nd: The airfield next to the landing zone is captured. As reinforcements keep flowing in, the beachhead expands, threatening main Turkish front lines.


October 8th: Mangukuo surrenders to Soviet Union. It is a rather small victory for the Komintern, given the overall failure of the Stavka, so far, to hold off Axis legions.


October 10th: Turkey surrenders to Romania. The territory is annexed by Romania. Black Sea is now almost under Romanian control.


October 13th: Japan starts its Central America campaign by invading Guatemala. The war spreads to whole America.


October 14th: With the capture of Baki, Soviet Union is dislocating. Stalin commits suicide. The Stavka sends an emissary to Germany to accept the surrender conditions. Germany imposes Drang nach Osten, while Romania takes the whole Caucasus, plus some territories East of Stalingrad. The Bear has fallen. Bolshevism is dead. Romania can now turn its attention to a new threat: the Allies.





Imperiul Bizantin
Buna Vestire
October 1940 – February 1941


October 15th: Conducãtor Antonescu meets King Carol II. On the agenda, the expansion beyond Turkey and Soviet Union. Soon after, War Cabinet tables a new plan, Operation Imperiul Bizantin , which basically proposes to fully secure oil reserves of Middle-East under Romanian control (Caucasus was the 1st step toward that economic domination). According to the plan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Persia would be targeted as primary objectives. Opening the Suez channel also stems as an important objective according to the plan, as this economic route is seen as vital to facilitate exports of fuel to Asia from Romanian refineries. The last objective, but not the least important component of this plan, is to free Palestine from the Allies domination. This latest part is seen as a key element by Horia Sima, Minister of Religious Affairs.



Plan Imperiul Bizantin

October 16th: During the upcoming 3 months, Japan will mount and complete its Central America Campaign. Guatemala (Oct. 16th), Salvador (Oct. 30th), Panama (Oct. 30th), Cuba (Nov. 17th), Mexico (Nov 17th), Honduras (Nov. 19th), Haïti (Nov. 20th), Nicaragua (Nov. 30th) and Costa-Rica (Dec. 12th) will all fall to the Empire of The Sun might.


November 9th: Brazil joins the Allies.


December 12th: Italy declares war against Spain. The objective is quite and simple: to seize Gibraltar, by land.


December (date unknown): Japan land on the East Coast of the USA. USA is on the verge of losing the war.


December (date unknown): UK sends a strong expeditionary force in USA, to stop the Japanese. The US Newspapers welcome the help.



May the King saves America !

December 27th: Operation Sea Lion is launched.


January 1st 1941: Iraq is conquered by Romania. Romanians free Tobruk and are trying to encircle Alexandria and Egypt. The battle over the Suez Channel is a fierce one.



From plan to battle : Operation Imperiul Bizantin

January 28th: Germans are progressing toward London, as Dover falls under Axis domination.


February 3rd: London falls to Germany. More than 70 UK brigades are destroyed by Germany West of London in the last pocket.


February 4th: United Kingdom surrenders to Germany and the Axis. Exhausted, USA keeps fighting on its own ground but the campaign is clearly lost.


February 5th: War is over



The War is over !

 

[Capt. Tane]

mmmh,

I had the feeling that Japan was winning, and now you tell me they surrendered...

Thats an impressive expansion for Romania (in my limited experience), congrats

 

[Paglia]

mmmh,

I had the feeling that Japan was winning, and now you tell me they surrendered...

Thats an impressive expansion for Romania (in my limited experience), congrats

Japan: Yeah, I should have deleted the bottom of the newspaper. It was late, and I was too hasty.


Romania: Thanks, been a great game. Aftermath (incoming) shall show my strategy in details. Could be interesting to anyone who wonders how to play such a Minor.

 

[Paglia]

RĂZBOIUL SFÂNT CONTRA BOLŞEVISMULUI
(The Holy War against Bolshevism)
Aftermath
NEW POST DECEMBER 14^th
NORTH AMERICA SERIES GAME #5

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I AM, BY FATE, A DICTATOR"​

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Historical Flavor


We committed ourselves to write down an AAR with some historical flavour. By merging reality and fiction, introducing real events and modeling them a little to fit the story, we hope that we were able to give our readers something that would go beyond the usual “reporting what happened” approach. Hope you enjoyed.



The Political Game


Early in the game, we had in mind that getting a Fascist Government would allow us to write the kind of story (AAR) we wanted to write down. So, we asked our Allies (Italy) to support its faction (Fascists) in our country. This allowed Fascist support to grow and, by December 1937, this party was strong enough to win the election.

This strategy cost us a couple of things:

• We lost Antonescu as Chief of Staff (and its 5% bonus in ManPower);
• We knew, even if it was now available, that we could never take advantage of the Mix Industry (impact on CG was too high given the size of our economy).

After that, the only thing we had to do was to keep, from time to time, the mission “Support Ruling Party”, among our priorities.



The Spying Game


Early in the game, we spawn 20 spies, 10 for the homeland and 10 in reserve.

In homeland, we kept the mission “Increase National Unity” for most of the game as our main priority, with, from time to time, couple of other missions, namely “Support Ruling Party” and “Counterspying”. Counterspying was needed as, even if other players did not order OPS against us, AI was trying to do so… Notably trying to support other parties in the country!

The reserve was later used for our campaign in Soviet Union. Main task were “Military Spying” (50%), “Counterspying” (25%) and “Decrease National Unity” (25%). The later OPS did not matter as Soviet Union fell rather quickly. But the Military Spying was worth it, as we were able to spot most of Soviet troops, namely their fleet. At the time, we thought the Bear would try to massively land on our shores, as his whole fleet was in the Black Sea. We found out, partly because of this mission, that its transports were not in the Black Sea (but some were under construction tough).

Our choices were reasonable and very useful to fulfill our needs.



Overall Strategy


Leadership points and Manpower are the main Romanian constraints you have to deal with. Accordingly, we chose a build strategy that was in line with this.

We used massive licensing for everything that could be built elsewhere if it was to save some leadership points. For example, we bought (from Germany):

• Medium Tanks (2 brigades)
• Tank destroyers (4)
• Motorized (4)
• Armored Cars (2)
• Engineers (4)
• Submarine (1)
• Airplanes (it was our next step)

We then allocated our points on Land Doctrines, exclusively. We did not spend a single one on Air Doctrines, or Sea ones.

Since we knew we would need, to prevail over Soviet Union, a fast and strong offensive unit (see Cavalerie Corp) and strong Anti tank capabilities (add to this standard ART capabilities), our main picks were:

• Schwerpunck (+2 levels)
• Blitzkrieg (+2)
• Flexible Offensive (+2)
• Armor frontage reduction
• Both AT techs (+2)
• Both ART techs (+2)

Of course, we focused also on the 4 INF techs and related Doctrines, to get a sound army, with the ability to fight against Major power.

Notable other techs choices:

• Radio (the whole line, in order to get the +10% Combined Arm effect)
• AA (2 levels)
• Industrial capacity and building speed (+3)
• Education (+1)
• Civil Repair (+2)
• Operational (+2 to get under the 96 hours between each attacks)

The AA was needed as, we were expecting massive Allies bombing and we knew we would end up with lot of IC but few Manpower, IC that could be easily devoted to such a defensive task. Our choice in that department was wise. The Allies came with their bombers in December 1939, when our AA strategy was halfway. By Spring 1940, all Allies attempt failed.

The other choices were deemed needed to help get some traction early in the game. Radio was a key element given we were expecting to go against UK (Greece / Middle-East) and USSR as soon as 1940.



Cavalerie Corp & Romanian OOB


To fight off Soviet Union troops and open breaches in their frontlines, we designed our INF corps to be filled with the following setup:

• 1 X (3 INF + 1 ART)
• 2 X (3 INF + 1 AT)
• 2 X (2 INF + 1 ART + 1 AT)

The 2 + 2 were the main weapon to break the defences. And they did prevail. The others were there to flank our advance, and provide support vs probable T-34 & KV-1. We were clear expecting a strong Soviet Armored force. But this never occurred…

The Mountaineers Corps was a more traditional one, with 5 divisions of 3 X MTN each. That unit was heavily used to secure the Caucasus. 1 Division was sent in Turkey to help secure the Strait.

For Barbarrossa, we had 5 corps in Soviet Union (3 INF Divisions + 1 Mountaineers division + Cavalerie Corp). 2 Corps were kept in reserve in the South, mainly in Romania 1st, as Italy was garrisoning Greece. Those 2 corps were used to secure the Dardanelles Strait and fortify Turkey, later in the game, when the Soviet amphibious threat vanished.

To exploit the expected breach in the lines, we designed a corps – the Cavalerie Corp - that would play a key role during our offensive in the East. We were able to test it against Hungary and Greece and results were better than expected.

That corps had the following setup:

• 2 X (1 LARM + 1 MOT + 1 TD + 1 AC)
• 2 X (1 ARM + 1 MOT + 1 TD + 1 ENG)
• 1 X (2 LARM) – a scouting unit, used to assess what was laying ahead

Had we not designed that unit, Romania would have been less relevant in the East. We would have had no way to exploit our breaches. For example, once we managed to cross the River Dniepr, we were able to push forward trough 3 provinces, beating the Soviet each time. This allowed us to envelop Odessa, create encirclements and crush Soviet (to a Romanian scale, of course… but no less efficient and dreadful than the German ones).

Later, by splitting up the LARM into multiple single brigades, we were able to sustain a quick advance trough the Soviet plains and push forward up to Stalingrad and beyond…



Naval and Air force


We built 1 Cargo ship, to give us the ability to transport troops, mainly across the Black Sea. That was seen as an essential move to support our war plans. Our idea was to use it to either quickly reinforce our advance in Crimea, or allow for quick retreat in case we would get stuck in Soviet Union.

Since the war turned out the way it did, we were able to use them to implement an amphibious assault in Turkey, and never got to use them against Soviet Union. During the last session, our DD & TRSP were on their way to Gibraltar, in order to participate in the Sea Lion operation, once the Strait would have been secured by the Italians. Even if we talked a lot about it, SHBB Antonescu was existing only on paper… as we had no way to develop that tech tree (even not enough to get the 1st tech allowing us to build a BB…).

Our submarine (Delfinul) was mainly used to scout the Brits movement in the Aegan Sea. When we lost it, we decided to get a new one from Germany (license), to allow us to still have some scouting ability. We were always playing to prevent a Brits or Soviet invasion in Romania. Better to prevent those from happening or to know when they will happen, then to discover too late that you are toasted or about to be toasted… Remember, never lose the initiative… Being a Minor is not an excuse for losing that.

In the air, we started the game with 1 INT, 1 TAC and 1 NAV. We used them all the time, taking huge loss sometimes. Our goal was to get the maximum XP possible before our Crusade against Bolshevism. The INT had his moment of glory against Aussie and British Strategic Bombers, while the TAC/NAV also proved useful, by pounding the Soviet defensive lines, and sinking submarines (4 out of 5 USSR ones) parked near Constanta. So our Air, despite any improvement in techs or doctrines, did a nice job of supporting us.

 

[Paglia]

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This AAR is now completed. You can follow our new AAR HERE !

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[ThePastfinder]

One last thing. In spite of the overall course of the game, we got pretty badly owned here:

Now that's how you perform a raid.

SOV was sneaky too:

 

[Paglia]

AAR updated for spelling correction, thanks to some help of a reader. There may be some left, as I may have missed some and I did not adjust the picture accordingly.




SPECIAL THANKS

I want to thank Răspuns for his help with Romanian language. As I don't speak Romanian myself, I had to rely on online translators, mostly, and Răspuns was greatful enough to help me with some bad spelling of mine. I may not have been able to fully transpose everything he told me to do, but most of it is here.

THANKS FOR YOUR HELP ! I'M GREATFUL !