Good move on the guarantee of Sweden. Another armored division will help too, if the AI can take advantage of it.
I'm giving the Germans another opportunity to take the first shot, and if that shot is directed at Sweden, that would probably push Sweden to Join the Comintern... so win-win... As you recently caught up, you might remember my OOB, and my plan for a separate AI for Armoured AG, or even for 2ya Tankovaya Armiya, which would get different orders, while overlapping with 2nd AG or 3rd AG, I'm itching to see if that works on such a massive scale.
What is our relationship with Turkey again?
It's complicated. We tried to woo them, and once we started to get close, they decided they were getting too far from the Axis, then when they get close to the Axis, they try to get close to us again... Also, their neutrality vs. threat isn't quite there yet for them to join a faction, regardless of them continually aligning with different factions in order to stay slightly down and to the right of the middle of the diplo triangle...
Now that I'm looking at the Diplomacy screen, we might try to go for Romania, but I'm not sure what we'd really get out of it. Their encryption is rubbish, so we know exactly how big their military is, and to be honest, it's really not impressive... Navy and Air force are ridiculously small, and their Army can't cover the entire border it has with other Axis nations. (Basically, they have the USSR to the North, the Black Sea to the East, and the Axis (Bulgaria and Hungary) to the South and to the West). It just doesn't seem worth it. Of course keeping their oil fields out of the hands of the Axis is a plus. It should be noted that the Axis nabbed some of their territory, while we did not (didn't trigger Bessarabia event, making it a hell of a lot harder for Germany to get them into the Axis, especially since they gave pieces of Romanian territory to Hungary and Bulgaria under threat of war...
It sounded like the Italians are more pricking at the edges before being smacked back. They only landed a two brigade force in Syria, but then the French forces kicked them out.
True. But the fact they were able to do so in the first place is troubling.
Yes, they landed 2 Brigades in Syria, and they lost the unit, but, looking at the bigger picture, this 2 brigade unit made the British panic and pull a fully dug in Infantry Division from the front in Libya to deal with the Division, as the French were already dealing with it. It should be noted that these French forces are about the only ones that get adequate supplies outside of Indochina. They have submarines in Zhangjiang that are out of supply, but somehow, Beirut is swimming in the stuff... The efficiency of French logistics... Also, they have a decent-sized fleet including multiple Battleships, and a Carrier, sitting in Dakar, without supplies... The Royal Navy could use the help to fight the IJN, right off the coast of Indochina, but no, better to leave them in East-Africa without being able to properly supply them while the ports in Indochina are well-supplied but only have a few submarines...
The Italians seem to be taking advantage of the Royal Navy's temporary weakness in the med, they destroyed a relatively serious fleet with minimal losses on their side, this was a big gamble, but it paid off for them, clearing that fleet has given them some serious naval breathing space in the Med. They can get supplies to their troops in Lybia with minimal losses, hence the offensive, they can take Cyprus, and try out small invasions, but it's not going to last. Two brand new super-modern Battleships have just been deployed in the UK, they're getting organised now, but I've got a feeling they might end up in the Med, and the UK is capable of beating everyone in the air. The RN has a lot of ships, but they don't have the numbers to keep the IJN from sinking all of their convoys in South-East Asia, keep the med on lockdown, and protect convoys in the home waters from the occasional German sortie, not that the KM has much left... They keep shifting fleets to contest one area where they get attacked, and then, they get attacked elsewhere because they pulled the fleets they had there to deal with serious threats... Meanwhile, much of the USN, over 40 units, is in LA, presumably chilling on a beach somewhere, while the RN deals with the full brunt of the IJN, the entire Italian navy bunched together in a single serious fleet, and KM harassment, mostly through U-boats. The only allied navies pulling their weight are the British and the Australians (they don't have much of a navy, but have participated in a couple of battles, and lost Destroyers. The Dutch have another issue... IJN marines have taken the Batavia quite some time ago, the only port that is linked with the Dutch capital in Palembang. This is disastrous for them, as it means that all of their units across the Dutch East-Indies, outside of the one in their capital, are irremediably out of supply... I keep wishing for the Japs to just take the Dutch capital so that their supply center gets relocated to somewhere with a sea connection. If a player had done this, I would have called them out for blatantly exploiting the logistics system to cripple their opponent in an unrealistic way, especially since it's the only province the Japs have taken from the dutch...
1943 will be a killer year for the Royal Navy, compared to now, they'll have 6 new CVs and 2 more BBs, a whole lot of escorts, even more planes, and probably quite a few mechanised Divisions. All the UK needs to do, is hold out long enough so that all those new units still have nice big bases to deploy to... That should be feasible, even with the forces now on the ground.