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That's South Africa wrapped up. All Portugal's own work. Pity the Government fled into exile on board those cruisers, never to be seen again. You should be gaining a lot of Dutch land shortly.

So you can't load up troops on transports with a couple of HQ units, land them adjacent to Gibraltar and then attack?

I'f imagine so long as British and German forces qsquare off across the Channel, the Brits will stay home. Only after German troops are pulled east for war with Uncle Joe, will GB start sending its forces out again.
 
The sleeping giant stirs. Rumblings in the West! This must frighten Portugal whose jaw juts out so far to the west. Well done in South Africa. Grab as much as you can, while you can; that party may not last forever!
 
Nice... Armored cars, Messerschmidt fighters, a light and a heavy cruiser. Portugal's armed forces are starting to look rather respectable.

Knocking out South Africa all by yourself must count as your biggest conventional success (although your resource-grabbing campaign in East Asia is probably more decisive for the overall war effort). It's certainly a highlight for future Portuguese history books.
 
Impressive work in South-Africa, if I hadn’t seen it I wouldn’t have believe that Portugal would be able to take out South-Africa like that… but it seems like your great work have awaken the giant in the west. I am guessing the Americans do not like the development in the world so you might soon need to worry about seeing a new force on the world’s oceans when the USN arrives to join the fun. But until that happens I think you should march forward and capture as much provinces as possible around the world ;)
 
Just started reading this AAR, and it is the best I've seen. So immersive and educational at the same time. I especially love the fictional narratives every now and then. All in all, a winning recipe. :D
 
good to see your South African gambit pay off so well, even if Italy stays on the defense those UK forces in E Africa will be basically useless due to intermittent supply as you feast on their remaining convoy networks (esp as you'll soon be able to interdict both the entry to the med and the entry from the Atlantic to the Indian oceans.

overall, this has the air of a real success ...

Ahh, yes indeed! :) Thanks!

South African forces are now gravely worried. Only now? Their country is about to be annexed into Portugal. It's far too late to be gravely worried. You've secured Guyana, apart from Vichy French Guyana and the Bahamas. That's a useful base from which to watch America. Is Brazil on the Axis side? A chance to return that country to its rightful place in the orbit of Portugal would be most welcome.

When the Dutch do finally surrender, you'll have all the East Indies. There are some Dutch Caribbean Islands, but I expect you'll occupy them soon, too.

The torrent of Portuguese about to flood in to East Africa. The ill equipped outdated Portuguese troops? The ones who will be landed in rear areas trapping the British forces.

You'll soon have interesting strategic choices to make. Do you attack Egypt? Do you attack Australia and New Zealand or do you assault Hong Kong?

No, Brazil is out of any alliance right now. Just as well -- I feel I have quite enough to take on! :D

Wow, the caribean and indonesia are done. Well done!

What next? India?or Will you DOW Brasil?

Thanks! Well, India still seems a bit much for me, but who knows what the future might bring?

Well done and well played! I still think India may a ways off, but I do agree with Chief Ragusa that you will have interesting choices to make should this conclude successfully and soon. Have any of you conquests to date increased you research ability thus far? Have you made some research progress with the economic techs? I think this might go a long way toward moving Portugal from "Side-Show Bob" to the position of center ring!

Thanks! I appreciate it! This is still v1.2, and so I'm not sure any research advantage from conquest is included. When was that put in?

Ahhh, good to see that you're getting "stronger". Annexing South Africa should net you a good amount of IC and maybe some manpower, and you could really use both :) You can't keep "borrowing" stuff from the british in SA, at some point it's going to run out, so expand or die seems to be the order of the day :)

Yes, S. Africa will certainly help. I'll see if I can update that list of IC/Resource conquests soon.

1940 was a bad year for the Allies, but a good one for Portugal: all that running around, shuffling forces hither and thither and carefully husbanding your resources is starting to pay off in a rather grand way. Echoing Chief Ragusa, I look forward to seeing what choices you'll make for 1941.

It was harried, but it was fun! :D Thanks

I smell an epic AAR...

Thanks, FinnishFish! Welcome! :D

This is Jamestastic stuff...

Jamestastic, eh? I guess that's good! Welcome, Phalanx369!

That's South Africa wrapped up. All Portugal's own work. Pity the Government fled into exile on board those cruisers, never to be seen again. You should be gaining a lot of Dutch land shortly.

So you can't load up troops on transports with a couple of HQ units, land them adjacent to Gibraltar and then attack?

I'f imagine so long as British and German forces qsquare off across the Channel, the Brits will stay home. Only after German troops are pulled east for war with Uncle Joe, will GB start sending its forces out again.

I think with all the disadvantages I face, I wouldn't be able to mount a proper operation to overcome all those modifiers from an amphibious invasion, even against small resistance. Not without having to hang around where British warships are likely to cruise by. Too hazardous, for now. Maybe later once I have more transports to carry troops.

So south africa is gone now... I assume youll be clearing the british out of africa now...

Hoping to work on it. Thankfully I don't seem to need my troops urgently elsewhere.

Almost no more resistance in Africa ^^

For now it's a matter of pushing north to meet the Italians. It's a challenge of distance more than anything at this point. Not that the British lack some defenses...

For Portugal and through the deserts, oceans, jungles, and hills!

:D

Why must America do it all the time? :p
Ruining great wars with material support.

Yeah, no kidding. Spoilsports! :)

The sleeping giant stirs. Rumblings in the West! This must frighten Portugal whose jaw juts out so far to the west. Well done in South Africa. Grab as much as you can, while you can; that party may not last forever!

I'm not at all cheered by the prospect of the US entering. I really don't know what I'd do. I may have just beaten much of Britain's colonial empire, but the US is a different breed entirely. Maybe I don't know that yet, because I'm not looking back from 70 years later. :D

Nice... Armored cars, Messerschmidt fighters, a light and a heavy cruiser. Portugal's armed forces are starting to look rather respectable.

Knocking out South Africa all by yourself must count as your biggest conventional success (although your resource-grabbing campaign in East Asia is probably more decisive for the overall war effort). It's certainly a highlight for future Portuguese history books.

Yeah... too bad I can't develop and build my own stuff! :) Thanks! I wasn't sure at all, early on, that I'd be able to handle South Africa. Certainly didn't expect total victory.

Impressive work in South-Africa, if I hadn’t seen it I wouldn’t have believe that Portugal would be able to take out South-Africa like that… but it seems like your great work have awaken the giant in the west. I am guessing the Americans do not like the development in the world so you might soon need to worry about seeing a new force on the world’s oceans when the USN arrives to join the fun. But until that happens I think you should march forward and capture as much provinces as possible around the world ;)

Thanks! As I said, I was somewhat surprised myself! :) Yes... If the USN comes knocking I think I'll just act like I'm not home. :D

Just started reading this AAR, and it is the best I've seen. So immersive and educational at the same time. I especially love the fictional narratives every now and then. All in all, a winning recipe. :D

Thanks, McCann! Welcome! I really appreciate that! It's kind of dated now -- v1.2 -- but still very useful in some strategies, which are transferrable to any version. I need to see if I can do another fiction bit soon. Just kind of tied up at the moment.

And thanks again to everybody for your readership and comments!

I've gotten very busy again, and probably will be for a while still. Sorry it's slowing the udpates down, but you should still see about one update a week anyway. Sforza and I Am Siam are up next, then I'll get back to my HOI 3 AARs.

Rensslaer
 
I'm not suggesting an amphibious assault directly on Gibraltar; land adjacent to Gibraltar and then assault.

You can't attack out of neutral territory, and even if the game allowed it, he wouldn't have any supplies, so no attacking through Spain. Spain would need to join the war first.
 
even if the game allowed it, he wouldn't have any supplies, Spain would need to join the war first.

That's what the HQ brigades were for. Bring your own supplies ad hope they last long enough to do the job.

Question does seem moot since Spain isn't in the war and Portugal doesn't have the bombers necessary to flatten the garrison.

Brazil would be an option, had you more troops in theatre. The presence of the carrier fleet in east africa would get in the way of amphibious operations against Egypt. You'd quickly exhaust supply, unless you can take Alexandria quickly. In the far east perhaps you can lure the British out of Hong Kong like you did Singapore by leaving something tasty for them to take. An Australian campaign is probably doable without taking Hong Kong first.
 
Last update ended basically at the end of 1940. This one covers January through March 1941, but I'm going to start you off with a February Production screen. A nice slow start for now, because it's going to be a WILD ride through the rest of the update! :D

Feb1941Production.jpg


My garrisons meant to defend Portugal are done, so now my Production Queue is filled with some extra defenses, offensive infantry, my armored cars (license-built), two cruisers (heavy and light), and even some fortresses. There are more forts in the queue than you see, and more land units too. These are just some of the critical items I'm concentrating on.

12Feb1941Bf109.jpg


One reason, btw, that I suddenly have so many different items actively building in my queue is that I've just finished those expensive interceptor fighters -- the Bf-109Fs that will hopefully allow me to fend off any British air attacks upon Lisbon.

You'll recall from last time I'd trapped the British "Wessex" Division on a non-central Bahamaian island, where it had no supplies.

9Jan1941Bahamas.jpg


In the month since then, I've battled and defeated them, and they've surrendered. Now, in mid-January, the Bahamas are entirely in Portuguese control, which frees up some units to go wander elsewhere.

One of those units is brought to Barbados to add some heft to an offensive against the British in St. George. Mopping up to see if we can finish this theatre off.

Jan161941Barbados.jpg


You might think, from the screenshot, that I'm not doing so well. But in actuality, the out-of-supply British do not pose a threat to me. I can wear them down, stop my attack, and then recover and reinforce while the British sit there wondering when we're coming to finish them off. You'll see the demise of that garrison within a couple of months, I promise you.

We're doing the same sort of mop-up in Singapore/Malaya. I want to close off that front so that I can use those units for more productive work than just guarding these guys. We were able to pry one of the two divisions out of the southernmost province, and they retreated north as we moved in to (we THOUGHT!) trap them both.

11Feb1941Singapore.jpg


As you can see from the screenshot, the British are not quite as pinned-down as I'd expected. Somehow they've found some supply in order to move. They must have just lain dormant for a while, waiting to figure out what to do, and finally decided to use their last reserves to move north out of a desperate situation.

All in all, I can't blame them. But one thing they gave up was their entrenchment, which they will come to rue.

1March1941Singapore.jpg


Both divisions were on their last legs, and so once one of them was pushed back (and thereby without entrenchment), and the other chose to move (and thereby without entrenchment), my job was alot easier. By the 1st of March I'd defeated both lingering divisions, accepting the surrender of their tattered and underfed soldiers, and by the 5th all of Malaya was in Portuguese hands. You'll notice that, immediately, we re-embark some of our troops for use elsewhere.

Before I go on, I want to draw to your attention the notices of Portuguese commerce raiders -- that's Chita and Co.! -- which have been sinking one or two transports every day (sometimes probably 3 or 4) throughout this period. Almost every raw screenshot has 1 or 2 or 3 such notices. It's still probably true that the Allies have plenty of Convoy Transports left -- they have seen a reduction in convoys of probably 50-70% because they don't control very many ports any longer! :D But it must be having an impact on the war somehow, if only as a minor impact on Strategic Warfare, perhaps.

24Jan1941Tanzania.jpg


As you'll recall in the last update, we had pushed north into Tanganyika, and we're approaching the outskirts of Dar Es Salaam, where the British have a major Naval Base which hosts carriers and battleships (no word on why these weren't deployed against us -- timid AI, I guess). We bring up enough divisions to mount an attack, and toward the end of January we go forward, outnumbering the enemy by more than 2:1. Granted, that's less than is usually advised when attacking entrenched positions, but remember we have the same thing going for us here as in the other battles -- if we exhaust ourselves, we can always cease the attack and rest while we try again. The difference here is the enemy is still receiving supplies, but on the whole we'll recover our edge faster because we outnumber them and have reinforcements approaching from the south.

By mid-February, only one of the three Portuguese divisions can still muster fighting strength -- one division breaking off just the week before. It's a "race to the finish" with no clear sign of which of us will prevail. I'm hitting the enemy with my tac bombers to help.

13Feb1941Tanzania.jpg


A couple of days later, the British blink! They throw in the towel and retreat to the north. Other British divisions are seen fleeing northward too. Our tired, but exstatic troops move forward and capture the colonial capital!

14Feb1941DaresSalaam.jpg


Having waited another couple of weeks to be sure the enemy fleet has departed the area, we transport another division up by sea, and begin advancing along the coast again.

That's the Kenyan port of Mombassa, visible in the top right of the screenshot. We're making tremendous progress, and before long will be linking up with the Italians in Somaliland.

8Mar1941Tanzania.jpg


Now... Going back in time, again, you'll recall that we had entrapped a number of British divisions in the south. They had been fleeing from our advance into South Africa and Bechuanaland, but our cavalry linked up between Angola in the west and Mozambique in the east, creating a cordon of Portuguese territory north of these British divisions.

In January, the 18th Infantry had attacked the flank of the 3rd Cavalry, and by the end of that month the beleaguered 3rd appeared as if it would be unable to hold out, despite the British disadvantage of not being in supply (they're using up their reserves, every day).

3Feb1941Breakout.jpg


In fact, by the middle of February, the British defeated the 3rd Cavalry, which was forced to retreat to the west. The British, of course, advanced, and would have broken out of their entrapment, except...

On the 8th of March, the Portuguese 22nd Infantry, advancing from Mozambique, successfully made contact with the British rear guard, causing them to have to halt their advance and turn to defend themselves!

8Mar1941Bechuanaland.jpg


The British, still out of supply, and having tired themselves out against the 3rd Cavalry (which would soon re-engage the 18th Infantry and provide some distraction to their flank), were in no shape to defeat a full-strength Portuguese infantry division. They were trapped, and would soon come to grief.

There were another 2 British divisions which had been attempting to break out of the pocket, and on the 15th of March converging Portuguese divisions engaged them, and began to crush this last bit of Allied resistence in the south of Africa.

15Mar1941Bechuanaland.jpg


The British were stronger in numbers, but surrounded with no supplies reaching them from the north, their fate would also be sealed before the spring was finished.

Soon, it was clear that every Portuguese division in the south -- all except some garrison divisions to guard the cities -- would be racing north to see what of British Africa they could claim on their way to the Mediterranean.
 
The old adage is certainly true for the Brits: An army marches on its stomach! Failure of the AI to maintain viable supply had been its undoing in many engagements and your (dare I say) textbook approach to keeping them off balance clearly highlights this oft fatal flaw. The march up, through and past the heart of Africa will be interesting to watch.
 
Impressive performance againsthe British in East Africa. That carrier's aircraft could have stopped your advance dead in South Africa. Was it out of supply? They haven't engaged you on your march north. If they defend like that in Egypt, you'll win big there too.

You've removed pockets of enemy troops and are now ready to move on to other things. I'm looking forward to the Dutch surrender and the formation of the Portuguese East Indies. Lots of raw materials.
 
I had problems reconquering Italian East Africa because apparently supply had to come from Italy so when I reached the outer areas it was impossible to move any farther than the exterior without a naval invasion
 
The German generals were standing in line at attention, flinching at every insult. Besides them their Italian counterparts, advisors added to the German General staff, seemed to look desperately for rock to climb under.
“This is a disgrace! Verdammt nochmal!” Hitler was furiously walking up and down the line waving a file bearing the Portuguese flag. “All the superior equipment, our finest Arian soldiers, and look what you have to show for it!” He stopped and almost jabbed his nose in the eye of a small, whimpering lieutenant-general. “Nothing! We should have taken England itself by now! Look at what our forgotten allies have accomplished. They managed to knock South Africa straight out of the war, conquered almost half of Africa and have bases in the Indies and even in America! You hear me? America! And all that with third rate troops and horses. HORSES! *a long rant in German full of swear words* They even managed to sink more allied shipping than the Bismarck!” One admiral seemed to want to react but Hitler beat him to the punch. He threw the folder, hitting him square on the chin, screaming. “And the worst thing is that the Bismarck was actually designed for it! You blundering fools!” An SS courier opened the door, quickly assessed the situation and thought it prudent to retreat with haste.
“Did you know that besides doing more than any of you to blockade the Brits, having conquered more land with less, and actually fighting the English, which is more than can be said of our German troops, sipping wine at the French coast, they are also one of our major suppliers of much needed oil and rares?” He walked to the large map on the wall, where a significant part was marked in Portuguese green. “Look at it!” Those damn little devils are the most worthy allies if I do say so myself.” He shouted for one of his aids at an even louder voice, surprising even the two SS guards at the door who had until now managed to have the calculated air of uninterested vigilance, which all SS guard seem to possess. “Strohm! Get in here!” A puffy colonel in a suit that probably fit him about a year ago entered. “Get word to Speer to contact the Portuguuese and send them engineers and blueprints for military production. It's a disgrace for the axis that they are still riding horses while our armor is gathering dust in Turkey. Have them at least build some Pzkfw 222's or something, at least that resembles real armor from a distance.” He turned to Bormann and lowered his voice. “I'm telling you those devils have some magic working for them. They almost always manage to escape disaster? I heard one of their planes, the jaguar or something, has even had dozens of encounters with RN warships and always managed to get away on top?”
His fury turned to the Italian general Stofani who had the misfortune to be the nearest. And you! Who in their right mind sends a parachute division to a desert? I was toying with the idea to send an army of my own to the desert to finally push you off your asses, but now that I think of it... Stroller!” An young SS adjutant entered. “Start drawing up plans for a deployment in Africa, give it some cool name, like the Afrika Korps or something. Not too much, some thanks and motorized infantry and such. And send that cocky fellow with the weird name to lead it, I hear he is relatively good at doing as asked, what's his name, Rommel? Than send them to the...” He paused and looked at the Italians who suddenly looked a bit more hopeful. “...the Portuguese, at least they will put them to good use.” He went to his desk and fell into his chair. “All of you incompetent fools, get out! And get me some Portuguese advisors!!”



Phew, took me over a week to get up to date with this AAR but I must say it was well worth it. Luckily Rennslaer is not the world's fastest updater. :D

Wow, I must admit I never considered this possible for Portugal. Certainly after the initial shock I had when seeing what you had to start with (IC, research, troops). You are definitely proving to be a skilled tactician and I concur with earlier claims that this should be on every beginners reading list.
It is especially refreshing since there are no tanks. To most of us (I assume) who are used to those magnificent beasts of metal and grease, this almost seems like a look back in history, like the war is actually fought in the 1920's. ;) Although to my own fault I had to realize in my games that in the end I also resorted to cavalry in Africa, when all those shiny tanks were constantly out of fuel. :D

Is it safe to say that you appear to be the third biggest (VP) or at least most valuable axis member, currently?

Are most of VP for Netherlands situated in mainland Holland or not? If not, is it possible They will actually surrender to you? And when annexed, would you get Holland too? Would be nice. :)

What are your plans now with those vast territories in terms of revoltrisk? Placing a lot of single brigades?

Your lure and grab technique seems highly effective against a rather dumb AI, I see possibilities! :D

I think Hong Kong should be high on the priority list now (for all the benefits you already know).

What the US concerns you might stand some chance if you were to occupy some pivotal points, reinforced with forts. This would make their stepstone invasion techniques rather useless and would protect Lisbon. This all hinges on the big Brothers occupying England and Iceland of course.

Some guesses for next updates: (?) ;)

-Just when the two British fighter pilots zeroed in on their wounded pray, the lone Focke Wolf 200 “Chita” one of them caught a glimpse of light bouncing off metal in the corner of his eye. Too late he saw the pair of Messerschmitts diving at them from the blind spot. ....

-In Gyana, the local commanders were curious why they were assembled here, the war seemed far away. The general handed each of the a folder with a grim look on his face. The folder contained the invasion plans for the United States of America...

Well, keep up the good work!