US-AL (it's a bit silly)

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Howdy, folks. I'm Al Landon, and I'm King of the World. Or at least, President of Aymerica, which is near enough the same darn thing.

When last we spoke, Japan - the second o' two nations to declare war on us without so much as a 'by your leave', had been thoroughly defeated. Ol' Hirohito gets to keep his Chrisan ... Crysan ... his throne (what kinda throne is made outta flowers anyway?) but Japan has to toe the line in the international arena and stop bein' so darn uppity.

Beatin' Japan means that only China is left as an enemy. I woulda preferred to just let 'em surrender, since they were the victims of Japan in the first place, put the puppets ol' Hirohito's boys set up weren't willin' to talk, so I had to send the boys in ...

Which made the Chinese sit up and take notice.

Under the terms o' peace, China has to hold free elections and join our alliance, but I don't figure that'll help us much ... a bunch of coolies in straw hats and sandals ain't gonna be able to teach us nothin' -

- like I was sayin', I have always had the highest opinion o' the Chinese people. Industrious and intelligent folk. Why, they discovered gunpowder, y'know!

That darn Stalin wouldn't give up any o' the territory he'd stolen from China, o' course, but I was at least able to force the Japanese to give back everythin' the Japanese had managed to take back in the 30s.

While I was doin' that, the Brits decided that it was time to let loose the reins o' their empire. Good jobs, Brits! You've just made yourselves even more useless in the event of a war.

And I gotta say, despite the fact that Germany and Japan are beat, I'm more than a mite worried about ol' Stalin. He's got a mustache. You can't trust foreign types with mustaches. Look at Hitler. And Hirohito. And De Gaulle - what? Yeah, I know he was on our side. I still don't trust him.

Our side does look mighty fine, I gotta say.

But the Commies have a pretty large stack o' real estate, too.

I'm preparin' for the worst, setting up garrisons along the borders in China ...

Korea ...

And Europe ...

But mostly, I'm hopin' that they won't be needed. I mean, only a mad man would start another war so soon after the last one, right?

Darn you, Stalin!

Well, there's nothin' for it but to gird our loins once more and show the Commies just what Aymericans are made of. Pre-prepared orders go out, and the boys move forward.

Looks like Joe's declaration caught his own folks out more'n it did us. There's nothin' to stop us in Poland, and the Bulgarians can't hold us up real long. It ain't long before Sofia is in our hands, and we're gettin' close to Warsaw ...

... and then the Red Army starts to show up.

That ... looks like it might present a challenge.


Game Notes
I 'acceptall'ed to get the Japanese provinces and then gave them all back to China. It was easier to do that way than to edit the save game. The peace treaty with China was just the 'offer puppet status' option in the diplomacy screen.

There are some pretty large Red Army stacks in the former Baltic states, and they're all heading to the front. Al's not likely to mention it, but the US Army is already screaming for assistance from her allies (i.e. MilCon FTW!)

 

[El Pip]

I do hope Als bitten off more than he can chew, he's been a bit too cocky so far. I know he wont, but a man can hope.

 

[Nathan Madien]

Well, he can always just hand this problem off to somebody else come November 1944.

 

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Remember Torun.

Remember the bloody fields. The stink of the bodies in the blazing sun. The tangle of the barbed wire and the ruins. The cries of women and children as bombs rained down. The screams of men dying.

Remember the seventy-five days of rolling battles. The surge of first one side, then the other. Remember the carnage. Remember the deaths. Remember the brave soldiers who gave their lives for freedom.

And most of all: remember who won, you Commie scum!

Howdy folks.

Al 'Be Glad to See the Back o' These Darn Commies' Landon here, with another update on the front lines of what the newspaper folks are calling the Third World War.

When last we talked, the Reds had just started appearin' in big numbers in northern Poland. By mid-May, the battle lines were really startin' to form up, with the key position being the province of Torun, a name that will live in Aymerican history alongside those of Antietam and Gettysburg.

The first battles of Torun were a tough affair. Red Army units kept movin' into the territory. Our boys would beat 'em, time after time, but it slowed the advance to a crawl, and eventually the lads were just too exhausted to continue.

While we were givin' our boys a well-earned rest, the Commies opened up hostilities further south. They quickly punched through a weakly-held sector o' our lines, which gave me quite the scare, I can tell ya! Fortunately ol' Marshie is a tricksy fella. He'd put that weak spot there on purpose, and was able to bring in troops from the flanks to pinch off the saline. Saline? That the word? The 'bulge'.

After we won the battle of the bulge, the Commies contented themselves with some attacks to secure their position in Torun. After the first two weeks of fightin', things were looking stable for the time bein'. Both sides were pushin' more and more men into the area, but the Reds were too scared and our boys were too tired, to start anythin' right now.

We had no such trouble in the southern parts o' Europe. Havin' punched through Bulgaria, our boys were advancin' into Romania.

Still, we wanted to show the Bulgarians that there were no hard feelin's over them joinin' first the Axis and then the Commies. So we gave 'em back their country.

It soon turned out that Romania's Iron Legion was more'n a bit rusty when it came to fightin'. Around the time the second series of battles flared up in Torun, we pushed through the heartland of the country.

On June 18th, while thousands of boys were still dyin' to the north, the 1st US Rangers led the parade through Bucharest. Romania was a thing o' history.

The war in Asia is goin' pretty good, too. We're pushing north in China, takin' out the territory Joe Stalin grabbed when he was beatin' on the dirty Ja ... I mean, on the unfortunate previous administration of our valuable and respected Japanese allies.

It was also pretty clear that our Korea was better than his Korea.

So much so, in fact, that his Korea gave up completely, just a few days before Romania did.

Red territories in China continued to tumble. Our boys ... with a little support from Chinese coolies ... are makin' solid progress given the tough terrain and lack o' good roads.

By early August, when the Torun Campaign finally came to an end, Asian Command reported that its forces were advancin' into Mongolia and Manchuria.

All these fine Aymerican victories finally persuaded the Peruvians t'see the light.

OK, they probably ain't gonna do anythin' in the actual war, but it's nice to have friends, right?

And what of Torun itself? Well like I said at the beginning, there was a terrible battle there, lastin' well over two months, and costing us a lot o' men and material. It was a hard battle, but a necessary one. And eventually, superior Aymerican leadership and strategy carried the day. A series of what Marshie called "crumblin'" attacks wore down the Red positions one after another.

And after three months of fighting, Poland has been completely freed o' Communist oppression.

It's been a tough fight, but it's taught us all a valuable lesson.

And that lesson is:

U-S-A! U-S-A! We're number one!


Game Notes
What, you expected Al to actually learn some sense?

I started this session by editing the save game to switch control of various Romanian, Bulgarian and Polish provinces from our allies to us. Apart from that, everything was just playing the game as it happened. This was a real battle of attrition. The battles around Torun and Elbing represented the toughest I've faced in this game. Both were captured and lost, before being captured again. In Torun's case, it happened a couple of times. Ultimately, however, a combination of massive air power (lots of Interceptors, Tactical Bombers, and Strategic bombers were committed to this part of the front), and a shameless use of MilCon to supplement US forces, led to victory. It's hard for the enemy to cope with 2-1 odds when they're also being bombed into the stone age as they try to fight.

Don't look for Al to acknowledge the vital role of Allied forces any time soon, though.

 

[humancalculator]

Don't look for Al to acknowledge the vital role of Allied forces any time soon, though.

Well, HOI3 comes out in 35 days.

 

[Nathan Madien]

Remember Torun.

Remember the bloody fields. The stink of the bodies in the blazing sun. The tangle of the barbed wire and the ruins. The cries of women and children as bombs rained down. The screams of men dying.

Remember the seventy-five days of rolling battles. The surge of first one side, then the other. Remember the carnage. Remember the deaths. Remember the brave soldiers who gave their lives for freedom.

And most of all: remember who won, you Commie scum!

I thought I was reading a different AAR. The intro was so deep for Mr. Landon.

 

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Wait...you're using DAIM. Yet pretty much anyone standing against you just goes *crunch*.

Now, compare and contrast with Democracy's Last Legs, also using DAIM.

 

[humancalculator]

Wait...you're using DAIM. Yet pretty much anyone standing against you just goes *crunch*.

Now, compare and contrast with Democracy's Last Legs, also using DAIM.

I agree.

Something smells fishy with at least one of the AAR's.

 

[Gunneroid]

I agree.

Something smells fishy with at least one of the AAR's.

Thought DLL had some upgrades to the Germans and the Soviets (IC and resource wise) along with DAIM.

 

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The AI performance in DLL is like nothing I've ever seen in any game of HOI2. But then, I think he's using Arm, whereas I am in vanilla, and he probably has a much newer version of DAIM to contend with.

My Germany never took Czechoslovakia, which weakened it, and which made the war against France and Poland much more difficult for the wehrmacht. I also think that the event I added to bring Nat Spain into the Axis probably ended up weakening them. Yes, they got Spain as an ally, conquered the Republicans, and temporarily took Gibraltar ... but while that was going on, I'd pretty much destroyed Nat Spain's armies. So when the Germans didn't have anyone to fight in Spain any more, they sent all their troops off to the East front, which left Spain - with almost no units of its own - wide open for invasion.

Japan's poor performance can be blamed (a) on the ease with which the USA can garrison the Pacific in HOi2 (e.g. I had 40 militia divisions in the Philippines) and (b) on the fact that I never really attacked their transports. I'm guessing about (b), but that's the only explanation I can come up with for why the home island were so poorly defended: with a transport fleet still in being, the Japanese were still ferrying their troops to the Burma and NEI fronts.

The USSR is actually putting up quite a fight. It's taken 3 months to capture Poland, and the Red Army is really only being overwhelmed by a combination of raw numbers, thanks to Allied forces under MilCon, and massive use of the overly effective ground strikes mission. But yeah, they're fighting the US and the UK and France and Germany and Italy and China and Japan. And Peru! Don't think I'm too proud to ferry three-quarters of the improbably large Peruvian army to Siberia. I'm not

 

[Nathan Madien]

And Peru! Don't think I'm too proud to ferry three-quarters of the improbably large Peruvian army to Siberia. I'm not

That should frighten people in Siberia.

 

[El Pip]

That should frighten people in Siberia.

It'll certainly frighten the Peruvians!

 

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Oops. How did a month go by without an update?

Oh, that's right ... I got new games

I've actually played about another 12 months' worth of this game. There'll even be an update ... as soon as I recover from the time-destroying obession that is Fallout 3, that is!

 

[Davisx3m]

Poor USSR