World in Conflict - A Multiplayer AAR, TFH 4.02 #5

[feye1]

Welcome to this Multiplayer AAR

Starting date: January 1936
Version: TFH 4.02


Countries/Players:
United Kingdom - Gunstick (later Ikar as coop)
France - Ikarases
USA - Callan
Canada - doubled/AI; previously Duderino
Australia - doubled/AI; previously several players

Soviet Union - KevinG

Germany - feye1
Italy - Traks
Japan - ScanC
Romania - doubled; previously ScanC
Hungary - doubled; previously several players


Preface
For now the AAR will mainly be seen through the eyes of the players of Germany (feye1). Maybe other players of our group will be interested in posting some stuff too, but I can't force them ofcourse..
Our group consist of players with different levels of experience, but most are quick learners or already pretty experience!

For our main thread see: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...FH-World-in-Conflict-5-Monday-20.00-23.00-CET

We are using a small Mod - now much used by MP groups on forum - I designed for multiplayer balance, you can read more about it here: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?815597-Multiplayer-Mod-Comments-advice-questions


Click on spoiler for our house rules:

Spoiler

RULES OF WORLD IN CONFLICT

Rules in red are changed in content or just have less text. Make sure you read them again carefully.

1. Behaviour
1.1 Keep in mind that all members of your faction are or can be integral to victory. Try to keep each other strong; minors back your faction leader(s), and Majors watch out for your minor allies. We want to make the game productive and fun for all players.

1.2 Speed: We will play at speed 4 during peacetime (assuming no sync issues), wars against AI speed 3-4 and during human wars speed will be reduced to speed 1 or speed 2 if all agree.

1.3 You may only look at saves as countries of your own faction

2. Diplomacy
2.1.1 Historical play (only DoW by event) up until Germany fires Danzig event. Germany is required to launch Danzig before 1 September 1939.

2.1.2 Axis countries cannot use limited DoW’s unless at war with the Allies. Exception are event DoWs and Japan declaring on Chinese minors.

2.1.3 Axis have to DoW the Netherlands and Belgium at the same time

2.1.4 The Soviet Union is not allowed any non-event DOW (except for DoW on Axis) unless at war with the Axis.

2.1.5 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact is required. Germany can't break the Pact and isn't allowed to attack the Soviet Union before 1941 and vice versa. Also the Axis can't conquer/puppet Finland, Baltic States and Eastern Poland before attack on Soviet Union because this is Soviet Sphere of Influence. Soviet Union is allowed to annex Finland if it wants.

2.1.6 If Axis declare war on Turkey, it has to declare war on the Soviet Union the same time. This can't be done till 1941! Allies can't declare war on Turkey before 1941 too.

2.1.7 Japan can't declare war before 1.1.1940 on the Allies at any time. Japan isn't allowed to declare war within three months after the Fall of France.

2.1.8 If Japan declares war on either the Allies or USA, war must be declared on the other as well.

2.1.9 Japan can´t declare war on the Soviet Union before it is at war with the Allies.

2.1.10 Japan can´t declare war on any country except Chinese minors, without declaring war on the Allies (and USA) aswell. A call to arms is considered as DoW.

2.1.11 Japan has to defeat China within six months after DoW. Must DoW China in July 1937!

2.1.12 Italy has to defeat Ethiopia within four months after DoW

2.1.13 Soviet Union has to defeat Finland within three months after DoW

2.1.14 The Allies are not allowed to DoW any member of the Axis until Fall of France. Allies can't declare war on unaligned countries until the USA enters the war.

2.1.15 USA war entry, no earlier than 1941. Any Axis landing in UK home islands will allow the USA to join the war immediately.

2.1.16 When Axis troops enter Soviet territory, it has to declare war on the USA. This to prevent Axis keeping USA out of the war till game is decided in Europe.

2.1.17 You need to be in a faction to declare war on another nation.

2.1.18 If you declare war on a faction, you must attack them with a strong force. You can't just attack and sit idle just for war laws. I.e Italy dowing Allies and just do nothing or Soviet Union DoWing Axis and camping behind rivers.

2.2.1 No Guarantee of Independence (GoI)
2.2.2 No use of aquire territory.
2.2.3 No Military Access with neutral countries.
2.2.4 No puppeting countries with players or majors.
2.2.5 Puppets should join the war as soon as their master does too. This also means if you puppet for example an Allied country, which then has a truce with the Allies. Master or faction leader should call it to arms immediately.
2.2.6 After the fall of a country, all expeditionary forces need to send back within a month. Meanwhile expeditionary forces can't be used on the offensive.
2.2.7 No stationing fleets in straits pre-war
2.2.8 No crossing Bosphorus when you are at war, unless Istanbul is controlled by your faction.
2.2.9 “Anschluss of Austria” (Germany annex Austria) may not be activated after March 1938.
2.2.10 “The Treaty of Munich” (Germany annex the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia) may not be activated after September 1938.
2.2.11 “The First Vienna Award” (Germany annex Czech Republic; Slovakia puppet) may not be activated after March 1939.
2.2.12 Germany has to accept Vichy event.
2.2.13 Soviet Union can have max 85% national unity.
2.2.14 Soviet Union has to purge when the decision becomes available.
2.2.15 Only minors can use prepare for war.


3. Trade & Resources
3.1 Allies must agree to trade surplus above +5 resources until Danzig. Soviet Union until Molotov Ribbentrop is broken. USA can embargo Japan after Indochina-event.
3.2 Allied majors must trade money for supplies if they have a surplus of 1 money or more. Don't do bullshit trades like buying oil as USA / UK / SOV or any other game breaking things.
3.3 Countries are not allowed to use trade to deplete its resources stockpile to prevent capture.
3.4 Trade directly. No buying and then reselling it to avoid convoys.
3.5 Countries can't give away their stockpile of money, just because another country is in need (i.e. USA buying a transport ship for $3000).
3.5 You can't sell more then 50 supplies to a friendly nation (Allies + Comintern is seen as Allied) after Danzig, unless in direct need of money. This to prevent circumventing Lend Lease.

4. Combat
4.1 Units not in home/core territory or within 5 provinces of enemies cannot be disbanded
4.2 Limit of 30 ships total per seazone, per faction. This applies to stationary fleets and ones in combat. If you go over this limit on accident (retreat) you must take action to fix this ASAP
4.3 Limit of 20 ships in a fleet.
4.4 No more than 6 capital ships in a single fleet
4.5. Stacking limits - air: max 12 friendly CAGs over any sea zone
4.6 No logbombing allowed with rockets and strategic bombers
4.7 No landing Paratroopers in an empty province that hostile forces are retreating to.
4.8 Max 10 para division per country
4.9 Japan can't use CAGs to bomb in war against China.
4.10 European Axis planes can't rebase to Japanese air bases, unless they are in range of those planes.

4.11 You can't do expeditionary forces when there is a combat bonus event going on or likely to be coming. This is mostly the case for Germany with Blitzkrieg and Destiny event, but also the UK for example can benefit from it with Their Finest Hour event.

4.12 * Pacific War Conditions *
Japan and USA are both restricted to operations in the Pacific, until certain conditions are met:

USA:

• Allies must hold at least 12 out of 16: Honolulu, Midway, Wake Island, Guam, Manilla, Batavia, Singapore, Rangoon, Calcutta, Bombay, Saigon, Naha, Iwo Jima, Saipan, Truk, Kwajalein.

Until Allies have met this conditions, USA must limit its operations outside of the Pacific Theatre:

• Limited combat fleets. Only one CTF and one SAG is allowed outside the Pacific and Indian Ocean.
• Land contributions outside of the Pacific Theatre, Indian Theatre and US proper is limited to 2 corps, unless the UK Home Islands are being invaded in which case it can send a maximum of 5 Corps in total. This means the USA can't send more then two corps to any area in Europe or Africa.
• Limited Air Force of max. 20 wings. This doesn't include the CAGs that are part of the CTF.

Japan:

• Axis must hold at least 12 out of 16: Honolulu, Midway, Wake Island, Guam, Manilla, Batavia, Singapore, Rangoon, Calcutta, Bombay, Saigon, Naha, Iwo Jima, Saipan, Truk, Kwajalein.

Until Japan has met its conditions, it is not allowed to leave the Pacific and Indian Theatre with any of its naval or air forces. Note that this does not limit Japans operations on Allied countries outside the Indian/Pacific Theatre, as long as their original invasion took place from the Pacific or Indian Ocean and new troops are brought in on provinces that borders one of these oceans.

In addition, Japan can't rebase to the ports & airfields of other Axis members unless they are in the Pacific Theatre or in range. This means, Japan is only allowed to operate within its own range, and must secure ports to extend that range.


5. Spying
5.1 No threat missions.
5.2 No lowering National Unity.
5.3 No coups.


6. Other
NO EXPLOITS or gamey tactics. While it would likely be impossible to list every possible exploit, please do not manipulate the game in an unfair manner. Obviously if we don't have a rule about it/haven't discussed it, you can't really be reprimanded for it, but we still may fix the issue. Also, not having a rule doesn't mean it's allowed. If you think some move or game mechanic might cause a lot of discussion, please discuss before.

6.1 No using HQs or other units without frontage to conquer territory.
6.2 No using encirclement (by troops or logbombing) on a Capital to exploit the supply system. If you surrounded the capital of a country, you have to do serious attempts to take the capital as soon as possible.
6.3 No licensing any land units for majors. Minors can license any unit except for LARM, ARM, HARM, SHARM. but only on Three Year Draft or higher. All ships and planes can be licensed by majors and minors.
6.4 No giving expeditionary forces to another country so they can be used against a target whom you are NOT at war with.
6.5 No undermanning HQs.
6.6 No depriving your units of supplies. You have to run a stockpile of 1000+ supplies.
6.7 Don't prolong war against AI nations
6.8 You can't use friendly air bases, when that country is not at war. Neither can you send units expeditionary to a friendly country, which then transports it around (most likely Italy in peace time transfering German troops to Africa to make sure nothing gets lost). This can only be done when at war.
6.9 You can't pre war paradrop to prevent attack delay.
6.10 No exploiting training laws. You are allowed to change training laws, but intentionally changing them to manipulate training times and getting experience for cheap or free is not allowed.
6.11 Resources convoys can't be shut down.
6.12 You must capture cities and victory points (no encircling and moving on to avoid modifiers).
6.12 You can't hide on friendly, but neutral territory. For example repairing planes as Germany on neutral Italian air fields. Or German ships raiding the Med Sea, but hiding in Italian ports when they get in danger. Also you can't 'hide' ground units to prevent being bombed.


7. Industry
7.1 IC deployement is limited to 10% of base IC a year. For example: 144 Base IC = +14 new IC, which makes 158 base IC after the run. The year after = +16 new IC (base is 158)
7.2 No more than level 5 forts, coastal forts, or radar.
7.3 You can't delete the starting army in order to save on consumer goods.

7.4 Upgrades are limited to the following (any others are forbidden):

• Starting GAR/MIL to INF (No special forces like Marines/Mountaineers)
• Starting CAV can be upgraded to MOT ONLY.
• Starting LARM can be upgraded to ARM ONLY.
  [*] Minors are allowed to upgrade their starting GAR/MIL/INF to Special Forces or motorised; majors are limited to the above.
  
  Upgrades can only be done at three year draft or higher.

7.6 No building reserves. Exception for this is for minors (while at peace ONLY). Only allowed on three year draft and peace time. Licenses are reserves. See Licensing rule for more info.
7.7 No building HARM before 1941. This means you can't start production till that time.
7.8 New units need to be deployed in 7 days. Buildings are allowed to stay in the pool, with a maximum of 3 for each.
7.9 You must activate the best draft law available.

8. Rules for substitutes
Majors unable to attend need to provide their own sub unless it is agreed by the group not to play. If no sub is found the group will look for a sub instead. Majors will never be played by AI.

9. Victory Conditions
9.1 Allies Victory: Germany and another major, Italy/Japan are defeated.
9.2 Axis Victory: Soviet Union and another major, UK/USA are defeated.
9.3 Factions can also surrender. For example, Axis defeated Soviet Union and Allies don't see a point in playing on. The Western Allies are then able to surrender to/make peace with Axis.

Just play fair, don't exploit the game and be mature.

Table of contents

Germany
Interwar period
Battle of France - part 1
Battle of France - part 2
Belgium, Balkans and Scandinavia
Battle of the Atlantic
Battle of Gibraltar and the Dutch stockpile
Operation Barbarossa - part 1
Operation Barbarossa - part 2
Operation Barbarossa - part 3
Battle for Western Europe - part 1
Defeat of Soviet Union

Soviet Union
The Great Patriotic War - part 1
The Great Patriotic War - part 2
The Great Patriotic War - part 3

United States
An introduction

France
Tactical Analysis: War from the French Perspective

Italy
Italy, land of Ferraris and Tactical Bombers

 

[feye1]

Interwar period (Germany)

Short introduction about myself:
Got quite a lot of experience in Hearts of Iron 3 multiplayer. I don't consider myself as an expert, but I know some others do haha. Sometimes my strategies don't make any sense at all, but I like to take a lot of risks.
This game I play Germany, one of my favourite countries because you actually decide when, what and where!

Preface
Germany, the central and second most powerful country in the game (after the USSR). I did play it pretty often and I always like doing it. I carefully prepared myself for this campaign. I will try to make the best of it and hope I can bring the Reich victory!
We have already a decent industrial base, but we need much more IC to build an enourmos army and air force. We have to make use of pretty large - but in the end also limited - manpower pool. Our leaders are very good and we have to make use of that benefit.

Our enemies
France: Ikar. He is a decent player who knows what to do and how this game works. As France he managed succesfully to stop Germany in another game, so this wont be an easy one I expect. Though, we should make sure our losses are not that high and we break through fast.

United Kingdom: Gunstick. A player I basically 'trained' from nothing to a top player myself the last year. We played and play very often as coop together in other multiplayer games. He knows the best of all other players out here what to expect. I'm quite sure he will find a good build to counter some of my strategies... No Sea Lion this game!

USSR: KevinG. A real top player in the community, one of the best I've seen. He is my main enemy and it will be very very hard to beat him. I need to pull of a superior game I'm afraid in order to beat him. With good Allies he really has a good chance of beating the Axis.

USA: Callan. Infamous for his naval skills. He likes to lose ships faster then building them, but learned quite a lot the last year. Let's hope he surprises us and pulls of a great game! A very good guy to have in your team, as he is by far the most loyal player I've seen as team member.

Canada: Duderino. Experienced guy. Knows the drill. Will be decent minor to have for the Allies.

Australia: Several people. That's always a problem, but I'm sure under the command of Gunstick they will have a good build.

Conclusion: With a good Allies/USSR team, we will have a very hard game as Axis. I'm happy to have the experience of Traks on my side to make up for a part of the experience the Allies have on their side.. Anyway, let's get started.

Army setup
With the inevitable clash with the Allies in the near future, we have to make sure we can protect the Reich. We need a large army and a huge air force, but not really a navy at all this game.

Land forces
France is our first enemy and basically all players will build only INF INF ART AT divisions for that country. So we don't need that much AT ourself, since our armoured divisions can handle the few French and possible British tanks, while they will also prove to be a great value against the infantry. We aim on artillery instead and build mostly INF INF ART ART divisions for the French Campaign.
We also will build a few 'cheap' but for France good enough tank corps, consisting of ARM MOT TD AC, while having one fast light armoured corps with LARM MOT AC AC.

Air force
We aim for a massive air force. Italy offered us to build at least 12 tactical bombers, which makes a total of 20. Hungary build us a transport plane, while we also get the Italian one. Germany goes for Light Aircraft only, meaning we will build a huge air fleet of interceptors, multi roles and stuka's. Around Danzig we will have about 90 fighters (INT + MR) and 12-18 CAS, together with the tactical bombers and transport planes.

Navy
We ignore the navy completely.

Pre war build up
As mentioned we have to invest heavily in our industrial base, air force and ground forces. Two IC runs (within the rules 10% of base IC) is common for nearly all German players, I decided to go more risky and build three IC runs. In order to survive I needed to suck up every rare available and a lot of metal pre war. \

Till early 1938 we didn't build much else except for Infra (to speed up the IC build because of practicals), IC and planes. Only a few divisions were build to cook practicals a bit. Benefit was that our threat was very low and France got his war laws pretty late compared to most games.

One of our IC runs..

Closer to Danzig we are building more planes, but also a lot of tanks and other stuff like infantry and artillery.

We will have a lot of specialised divisions for several tasks, one of them is our GAR + MP division, which will help us getting extra IC and resources out of Poland, France and Benelux.

Politics
We did some small changes on our political part. We put Hjalmar Schacht in charge of the Rearmament of the Wehrmacht, while Joseph Goebbels provided us from 5% extra leadership as Security Minister. Werner von Blomberg made sure we got an effective supply network, saving about 10% of supplies on all of our units!

Furthermore we changed to three year draft as soon as possible and we reduced the build time of our units due switching to minimal training. This way we can build much more stuff then on specialist or advanced training. We also increase our party organisation slightly.

Overview..

During the years we annexed Austria, Sudetenland and Czech Republic. Poland will be our next target that has to give up territory.. but they refused and that meant war. We declared war on them in June 1939..

Next chapter will cover the French Campaign.

 

[Traks]

Will keep an eye on this and maybe add more from Italian perspective later.

 

[Ikarases]

Subbed.

 

[feye1]

Battle of France - part 1 (Germany)

After all players prepared their countries for the inevitable war, it was waiting for the German DoW on the Allies. Early June Germany decided to declare war on Poland and their Allies, France and Britain. The loyal governments of Romania and Hungary decided to join Germany in their road to victory.


Poland
Poland was the first main target of the war. Romanian, Hungarian and German troops were stationed at the border. Hungary did hold the line in the south, while Romanian tanks and infantry were leading the assault. Two German infantry corps were supporting the attack and Poland fell quickly to the Axis. In their attempt to escape, we caught the British strategic bombers over Eastern Germany. After the fall of Poland they were heading from Warsaw to Metz, but in the battle of Berlin all three bomber groups were completely shot down. We didn't have to fear any terror or industrial bombing anymore from those nasty British guys!

France, the plan
German spies showed us France did build a lot of garrisons and from a previous game I knew Ikarases would put them on the Maginot Line. We were confident we could take advantage from this mistake, because the Maginot Line is not unbeatable at all. Especially against garrison units that don't shoot back properly we have a good chance.

We decided to strike at Wissembourg, because we can use most units (total frontage = 20) and do a second attack in the southern part of the Maginot Line - at Sélestat. This second attack was mainly meant to distract the reserve that were on the Swiss border, since we wanted to strike through Switzerland too. Our goal was to attack via Switzerland and Wissembourg in an attempt to encircle the southern part of the Maginot Line.

The plan we had in mind before the war..

We had three fast LARM MOT AC AC, one armoured corps and two infantry corps near the Swiss border prior to the DoW. To keep the surprise alive, we also kept huge amount of troops on the Belgium and Dutch border, while striking at Luxembourg at the first day of the



The Battle of France
The main battle will be fought in and against France. As planned we striked at the two places in the Maginot Line and were succesful in Wissembourg, but also in Sélestat. We didn't really expect this last one, but we noticed French reserves from Switzerland were heading to the positions to secure the Maginot Line at Sélestat and to stop the breakthrough near Wissembourg.

The battle of Wissembourg part 1

The battle of Wissembourg part 2

And the result..

We were also succesfull at Sélastat, but French reserves from Switzerland secured the area shortly after, as we hoped for..

We noticed France still had large reserves on the Belgian border, because the Allies did expect an attack on the Lowlands too. This was very good news for us and we quickly threw in armoured divisions in the gap at Wissembourg and fought our way through to the rivers Meurthe and Mosel to set up a short defensive line there.

Breakthrough is succesfull and set up temporary defensive positions

With the reserves for Switzerland mostly gone, we decided it was time to strike there too. We quickly took Aarau, Zürich and the eastern/southern part of the country. France was clearly hoping to hold Bern (the last VP) and the river line + forts. We headed for Bern and meet some resistance, but the French forces were no match for the German light and medium panzer divisions supported by very experienced engineers. Infantry divisions quickly moved in too in order to set up defensive positions.

French forces tried in a desperate attack to encircle some of our forward units by attacking Bern, but they failed. Well actually they won the battle of Bern - which was considered as a victory in the French camp - but I had reserves in the provinces and just let the French units exhaust themself in their desperate attacks on Bern. It would make the counterattacks on their positions in the forts much easier.

Breakthrough in Switzerland looked good

Battle of Bern where we let French units exhaust themself

We pushed the French forces in the south back to the riverline with the rivers Saône-Doubs-Rhône and halted there. Then we aimed for the encircling of the Maginot Line. We crossed the Mosel at Épinal and were in a perfect spot to execute our plan. In the south we took positions at Belfort. The last week of July we attacked Le Thillot, the last French stronghold that connected the French forces from the Maginot Line with the main front. The terrain was not perfect - Le Thillot has a lot of hills and from Belfort we also have the river penalty -and some of our panzer divisions were exhausted, but they had to execute this last attack with succes. Though, at the same time the French launched several counterattacks on our small corridor at Schirmeck. We had to fight several heavy battles out there but with reinforcements close and the Luftwaffe as superior weapon, we could hold the line and pushed for Le Thillot. Our glorious forces managed to break the French resistance and we encircled a large amount of divisions - intel showed about 25 - at the Maginot Line.

Counterattack at Schirmeck, we could hold after several fierce battles..

Battle for Le Thillot. This one would end in a disaster for the French Army!

We ordered the Luftwaffe to bomb the last supplies in the area and make it impossible for the French units to break out. We remained air superiority over France and bombed and attacked our way through their lines. With the loss of those 25 divisions - we let them just sit and die there - Ikarases was unable to hold the lines.

The Maginot Line encircled..



Next chapter will cover the second part of the French Campaign.

Situation at the end of the session..

 

[callanquinn]

The United States of America
As told by callanquin (Alias High-Supreme-Ultra-All Powerful Admiral Callan)
Introduction

Preface
I'll be in charge of the US of A this game, facing enemies in the West and the East. Not to worry! With good Allies, a massive industrial base and a whole lot of luck, I'm confident we can overturn any Axis aggression and bring the world freedom and democracy!

The years 1936-1939 were very long years for the USA, but that doesn't mean we sat idly looking across the pond, despite what Ikar says. As any player lucky enough to play USA knows, with limited manpower the best thing one can build is more Industrial Capacity. Despite starting with one of the biggest ones in the game, over the course of 3 years we managed to extend our base IC to just under 300, whilst also meeting other naval production targets. And I'm sure UK will be more than pleased to receive some of our IC in times to come also. Losing neutrality to use them however, is another matter.

One of our many new production facilities, this one building light aircraft for our carrier fleets. ​

The mainstay of the US strength is it's navy, especially it's carriers. Through extensive research and production, we have managed to output a large amount of CV fleets, complete with top-of-the-line new, speedy escort destroyers. Whilst we are winding down naval production slightly at the time of writing (July 1940), it still is a focal point of our production strategy. With excellent Admiral's leading our fleets, our enemies *cough*JAPAN*cough* would want to steer clear of our Pacific force.

Admirals Spruance, Nimitz and King. Fine Admirals sure, but nothing on my naval skills. ​

With all that out of the way, USA watched the green production bars slide from one end of the screen to the other over and over and over again. There was a war in China, some European countries were swallowed by Feye's Germany, and Italy took some Land in Africa. However, once the German panzer's rolled into Poland, the countdown was on until USA's entry into the war. We observed Poland and later France with intense concentration to gauge the German's strength and our Allies weakness. If they could not stop them, it would be up to Uncle Sam to save the day! Question is, with a small amount of manpower, our neutrality hampering us at every move, and Germany locking up Europe faster than snow melting on the sun, would it be too late?

Looking back on it, that carrier technology really got out of hand​

 

[luciusmalfoy012]

Glorious

No fucks given about the maginot line, no fuck given about the alps, let the minor allies take Poland...

I love it. Will you take out the lowlands later? It seems worth it seeing that attacking the Soviets requires you to wardec the U.S., so neutrality is irrelevant for Germany.

 

[feye1]

Glorious

No fucks given about the maginot line, no fuck given about the alps, let the minor allies take Poland...

I love it. Will you take out the lowlands later? It seems worth it seeing that attacking the Soviets requires you to wardec the U.S., so neutrality is irrelevant for Germany.

I will take down Belgium after France and The Netherlands will remain neutral as long as possible. They trade a good amount of rares to me. And really, with three IC runs and no possibility to trade rares with the Allies and Soviet Union (USSR sells after Winter War his rares to Japan who is very low on it due Germany building heavy IC) after Danzig, I would have serious resource problems in 1940 when I had conquered the Netherlands immediately. They trade now about 14.000 rares a year to me

I can't declare war on the USSR before January 1941, this to make the game more balanced. Japan can declare war on the Allies/USA on 1 January 1940, but never within three months of the Fall of France. So if France delays me much, it can extend the forced Japanese peace time up to let's say March 1940.

 

[feye1]

Battle of France - part 2 (Germany)

General Charles Huntziger signs the armistice on behalf of France​

Situation in France
With the encirclement of the units at the Maginot Line, we knew the French could only delay our advance. Though, we were not in a hurry. One of the reasons we declared war early was that we could advance carefully with low losses, but still end the war in a good time, meaning not later then early October 1939. This would mean Japan was allowed to join the war at January 1940. Even if it doesn't join at that date, the threat is always huge for the Allies and it will suck up naval, air and land units. This means much less time and thus pressure on mainly Italy. Also it would give us basically a free pass to conquer other countries if we desire.

So, with the French resistance basically gone, we moved on and put pressure to break his last line of defence. Ikarases ordered his troops to dig in around the river lines, but the German panzers never gave them time to organise properly. Ikarases aimed for initially for divisions with INF INF ART AT, which is a good set up. We knew that and because of that we went for INF INF ART ART. This gave our infantry divisions a huge advantage over the French ones and they didn't stand a chance. Also we noticed that he later wanted to pump out divisions with the setup INF ART ART AT, which is a very strong divisions to fill frontage. Though, sadly enough for Ikarases most of these divisions weren't ready and he had to fought with a lot of INF ART AT mostly.


The Battle of France
Anyway, back to the fighting. We attacked the French lines on several positions. Verdun seemed an important spot in the northern defense of France and it was a great spot to attack. Despite the fact it still has a level 1 fort and is partially behind a river, we thought it was a great place to attack. First of all we had to make up for our brothers that died here in World War 1, but we also could attack it from three sides. Making the frontage 20 means we could concentrate a lot of firepower in our attack. And the result was stunning. Only 1573 German soldiers died in the final and decisive breakthrough in the north, while France lost 5737 soldiers in the battle. After Verdun there was only one way for the French forces in the north and that was backwards in the direction of Paris. Several battles followed in that area after Verdun, but all showed us the same result. Some units got overrun and those soldiers were taken prisoner.

Verdun was a decisive breakthrough in the north. France could only retreat further after Verdun..

More to the center we also launched several attacks on the French lines and we managed to push back the French units all over the line. Between Troyes and Dijon we broke through without being able to get stopped before Paris. Two battles were important here, the battle of Langres was a first step, but the battle of Semur en Auxois was the key to breakthrough in the center. It became a huge victory and the losses were once again not high on our side, but very high on the side of our enemy. With this province gone there was nothing anymore between our mighty panzer divisions and Paris. As soon as we managed to breakthrough here and exploit the area behind, the French units all over the northern and central front retreated slowly to dig in around Paris.

Decisive breakthrough in the central front..


In the south France pulled of a counterattack on St. Claude and we had to retreat from the area, but soon we could retake the province again and dug in behind the rivers there. This also was sign for us to attack the area in the south and we pushed till Lyon and the Loire where we halted. We didn't want to lose soldiers if it wasn't necessary.

Advance on the southern front..


With France retreating to Paris several heavy battles were fought, but all were decided quickly in the advantage of Germany. We kept pressure high which mean the French units couldn't really regain organisation properly and we soon stood on the outskirts of Paris.

First heavy battles were fought in Beauvais. The French pulled up a good defense here, but after we brought in more firepower they had to reteat. The French units only controlled Maeux and Paris itself from now on. With Paris under huge pressure already, we first decided to take Meaux so we could make the battle of Paris easier for us, due using more frontage. Meaux saw several battles, but on 14 september 1939 we took it and Paris was surrounded on all sides. The French tried in a desperate attack to retake Meaux, but they failed at doing so. Our panzer division hold firm and with reinforcements close, there was not chance the German forces would even think of leaving the area now victory was close. With Paris entirely surrounded we increased the pressure on the French capital.

Situation around Paris..

Beauvais and Paris under attack..

To make life harder for the Allies, we called our loyal enemy Italy in the war. Traks was prepared well and has the boot protected very good. The Axis don't do an African Campaign this game, because we don't feel strong enough naval wise to do so succesfully. Italy focused on land units mostly and did build us a good amount of tactical bombers, which will be very useful later on in the game..

Back to Paris... the units inside the capital were exhausted and undermanned and fought for the pride of their nation. But.. they just didn't stand a chance against the continuous artillery attacks, the superior panzer divisions and our well trained and equipped infantry units. Even with the terrain on their side, the number of casualties showed once again the superiority of the Wehrmacht.

How the battle of Paris went..

The result was pretty clear..

Paris, the capital of France, was conquered by German troops in the afternoon of 18 september. All hope was gone for the French, who fought further till 3 October 1939, but then surrendered and signed an armistice in the 'Wagen von Compiègne'. France would exist under the name of Vichy France and it would keep it's colonies and the most of the southern part of the country. They signed a NAP for six months with Germany and the other Axis powers.

After the Fall of France, all eyes were focused on Italy and Germany. What would be their next move...

 

[Rastrigin]

Subbed subbed subbed!

 

[kamal521]

Fantastic , subbed !

 

[feye1]

Subbed subbed subbed!

Fantastic , subbed !

Welcome guys. I hope you support the Axis in their road to victory..

 

[Ikarases]

Tactical Analysis: War from the French Perspective​

Err... How do I write an AAR again…? Can anybody help me?!



Hello there folks! I was playing France this game and even though holding off player like Feye for over three months may be considered a success by some, I have to point out several mistakes on my side, so everybody can learn from them! Note this was my third French campaign in MP and both of my earlier defenses were successful.

As I’ve already pointed out, there were several mistakes I made:

First of them was my OOB being quite a hodgepodge. Seeing 133 combat divisions may make you think France was fairly strong in this game, automatically doing the math and totaling near 600 brigades. These divisions were however weak if they had odd composition like INF/AT and no leaders to go with them. Calculations failed and I found myself in a lack of ART brigades too late to do anything about it.

Feye punched through Wissembourg like it was nobody’s business and my plan to strategically redeploy there fresh units failed, unlike in Sélestat, which cost the Swiss front dearly on the other hand. 12 garrison brigades are no good against hundreds units of soft attack Feye threw at them.

It took me some time to completely abandon the potential Belgian front as I mostly pulled off one corps at a time.

Oddly enough, I got careless about the fate of troops on the Haugenau-Basel line. 26 divisions sat there with almost no use.

My technology wasn’t really awesome neither. My doctrines are lagging behind; I didn’t research anything ahead and officer ratio just a bit over 100%.

Overall, I consider this a good experience. France has finally fallen under my lead. One can’t learn if he only wins!

 

[feye1]

Thanks for giving your view on it Ikar

 

[feye1]

Belgium, Balkans and Scandinavia​

After the Fall of France it was up to the Axis to make the next step. Or were it the Allies that would launch a massive campaign against Germany or most likely: Italy?

First movements were made. A British infantry division invaded in Trapani on Sicily and moved to Palermo. Meanwhile German tactical bombers were throwing bombs on the division till it shattered and the surviving parts went back to London to set up a new division there.
.

Italian troops tried to retake the two provinces on Sicily, but a submarine is blocking the troops already for months now. So there is no possibility to retake the provinces at this moment. Italy also lost the province of Cagliari and we can't retake it with the Royal Navy present.

Meanwhile the German forces were taking positions along the Belgian border. Not long after they took the positions, it happened what the Belgians feared for: the Germans declared war on them. Within days the country fell and it stood no chance. Very low losses on the German side and very high number of casualties on the other side forced Belgium to surrender.

We changed our occupation laws from collaboration government to Total Exploitation in both France and Belgium, while already be doing in Switzerland and Poland. We put our special build GAR + MP divisions in the key area's to get maximum amount of IC and resources from both countries.

Poor Belgians didn't stand a chance..

.. and they gave up.

Our GAR + MP divisions prove they were worth it

Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Greece

Romania, already looking years to it's small neighbour Bulgaria, finally got the permission to attack the country when the Fall of France was close. In a quick but firm attack it overran the weak Bulgarian Army with it's infantry and light armour divisions. It was a huge victory and commander ScanC was welcomed as a hero in Bucharest.

Italy, Hungary and Romania were delighted when I gave the order to attack Yugoslavia. Finally Italy and Hungary saw some action and Italy quickly marched forward and connected Albania with it's mainland while retaking cores and other valuable provinces. Also Hungary moved in a few provinces, taking a couple cores but that's it. Romania marched forward in the east and took large parts of the country. With several cities taken, it got a higher mp gain, leadership and industrial base. Always good for an important minor as Romania!

We were delighted that the war on the Balkans went fast and soon after Yugoslavia the combined forces of Italy and Romania attacked Greece. Romania the northeastern part of the country, with most important place Thessaloniki. Italy got the other parts of the country, including Athens and the Peloponnese. In May 1940 fell Greece to the Axis powers, except for the last stronghold at Crete.

Axis units prepared to attack Yugoslavia..

The result of the Yugo-Blitz


Scandinavian Campaign
As we feared the United Kingdom to make life difficult with an attack on Denmark, I decided to let it neutral for a while. I defended my fleet and ports properly, so there was no chance of an invasion.

After the Fall of France, with Italy in the war and with the threat of a Japanese declaration of war, we saw Gunstick moving a lot of his fleet towards the Mediterranean Sea and the Far East. We decided it was time to strike in Scandinavia to suck up their resource stockpiles. I will explain more about the resource situation of the Axis in another chapter of this AAR.

A fast attack on Denmark ended within a few days, with our panzers moving and capturing their important cities. We decided to puppet the country, since we wanted to have Copenhagen in supplies at any given time. No matter what the Allies will be planning, Copenhagen is and stays under our control!

With a large part of Southern Sweden - and thus the important cities - under German control, they Swedish government gave up soon.

Soon after Denmark we aimed at their big neighbour, Sweden. Our specialised Panzer Divisions with engineers attached to them attacked Malmö from Copenhagen. Two paratrooper divisions - yes we did build them - were dropped on in the Swedish city aswell and soon the division defending Malmö had to retreat in order to survive. Quickly we move all our panzer divisions to Malmö, set up a convoy to the port and brought in additional supplies with our air transports. The Blitz through Sweden could begin. We aimed for the ports of Karlskrona and Göteborg to make our supply situation even better. Also we locked up several troops, destroyed a couple and headed for the other important cities of Sweden. The main objective was ofcourse Stockholm with it's nice stockpile. After taking the capital, the Swedish government decided to surrender and we got a great puppet on our side. With it's fleet alive, Sweden can be of great valua when it comes to fighting the fleet of the Soviet Union. Also they have a few submarines that might annoy the United Kingdom..

Norway was our next target and we brought our panzer divisions in position to Blitz over the the Norwegian roads to Oslo, their only victory point. The Norwegian resistance was weak and they gave up very fast, as they recognized they wouldn't receive any help from Britain. With Norway fallen, it was the end of the Scandinavian Campaign. Norway will provide us some good naval bases that can threaten the British Islands, though our fleet is very weak so it most likely will not be much more then look threatening.

Sweden will provide us a land connection with former Finland. The Soviet Union annexed the country during the Winter War, where it rolled over the Finnish defenses in three months.

Battle for Oslo, poor Norwegians!

After we took their capital, they immediately surrendered!


At the very end of the session, some rebellions popped up in France and took some ground. We quickly ordered a strong Panzer Division to shred them to pieces and prevent the reinstatement of Président Ikarases..

He and his rebellions did and will annoy us more often. We will try to rule with an iron fist to fear any potential rebels! All traitors to the Reich will be executed!

Rebels stand no chance against the 4. Panzer Division under the command of Walther von Brauchitsch

 

[duderino77]

Great Job Feye , subbed! I'll keep on following up with this ! :laugh:

EDIT: Also pls guys don't forget to "Rate the thread" in the menu bar, upper right corner.

 

[ScanC]

Nice work!

 

[sunsterson]

excellent aar.

 

[feye1]

Battle of the Atlantic

Italy did send most of their submarines to Stettin prior to it declaration to war on the Allies. They gave the German High Command control over those units in order to make it as succesful as possible. Though, we as Axis noticed already that the United Kingdom teched up ASW for it ships and our outdated, old submarines with poor range wouldn't stand a chance against the Royal Navy..


Anyway, we thought that it was better to sink at least a few convoys then have the submarines sit idle, so after the Fall of France the submarines rebased to the French Atlantic ports and were send out to raid the British convoys. A total of 13 submarines were in the Atlantic / English Channel raiding convoys and the brave German and Italian sailors did this with great succes in the early stages. The United Kingdom tried to hunt for our submarines, but they didn't do it with enough dedication. They had a large amount of ships in the Mediterranean Sea and later also in the Far East. Few Italian and the Romanian submarines were wreacking havoc in the Mediterranean Sea and shot up a lot convoys.

The UK had these fleets hunting submarines in the Gibraltar <> England region:
- 5 DD, received from the United States by event (stationed in the UK);
- 3 CVL + 3 DD (stationed in the UK);
- 6 BB + 9 CL + 5 DD(stationed in the UK)
- 5 CA + 12 DD (stationed in Gibraltar)

The fleet with the battleships in it, is superior on all parts to our small Kriegsmarine. Despite that fact, we decided to bring the entire Kriegsmarine to the French Atlantic ports. We wanted to pose a threat and were just waiting for Gunstick / Ikar to make mistakes.

And they did do that.. it left the big battlefleet in the ports and we could engage the 3 CVL + 3 DD fleet, but sadly enough we couldn't get in range long enough to shoot them too pieces. We also noticed the battlefleet was heading for our way, so we aborted the attack and quickly retreated to the port. When the threat was gone, we went back to the safe ports in Germany to plan for our next assault. The CVL's were repairing in ports and we nearly managed to sink them with bombing runs, but with only a few % strength left, Gunstick retreated them to Scapa Flow, a port outside of the range from our bombers.

He then send out the five old American destroyers and I noticed they were put on patrol order. I sneaked out two heavy cruisers and moved through the English Channel and engaged them in the Atlantic Ocean. Sadly enough I could only damage them heavily before - once again - the BB Fleet showed up. I retreated back to Germany and included the Heavy Cruisers back in our fleet.

With these engagements I made Gunstick probably more scary to move on the ocean, since he kept his fleets longer in the port and closer to the coast of England. This gave my submarines most times free time to raid those convoys. Sadly enough we lost in six months four submarines and Italy lost one submarine too in the Mediterranean Sea.
But overall we as Axis were delighted. Let's look at the results of our submarines..

From Fall of France till the end of the session we raided convoys the entire time. In several sea zones we sunk 3-4-5 convoys a week. We covered a large area, with submarines of 2600, 1700 and 800 range. Our intel shows that the United Kingdom was having convoy problems and they ordered very many new convoys. I estimate the UK is putting about 50-70 IC in new convoys for a while now and that is much, much, much more then we expected. We expected the submarines to be annoying but not valuable. But they proved us wrong and you don't hear us complain.

Probably the biggest victory was seen at the middle of the ocean. We noticed British transport ships moving from Gibraltar in the direction of Canada. Our fleet was standby in the port of Bordeaux and we ordered Raeder to engage the fleet when possible. When the transport fleet was on the middle of the ocean, the transports changed direction and were heading for England, exactly as we expected.. Raeder engaged the fleet and sunk three of the six transport. He quickly engaged them a second time, sinking also the remaining transport ships. Too bad no units were on the ships. We retreated but saw the British battlefleet heading our way. We knew that we would suffer heavy losses when it engaged us and tried to use the faster speed in our advantage. And we just got away - I think it I was 1 hour out of the sea zone when the battlefleet entered - and retreated to Bordeaux where we are regaining organisation and waiting for our next movements..

The UK was busy taking down Iceland and we noticed that. As Germany we don't care much about our fleet this game, so I went there to intercept the invasion force. Sadly enough I lost my two strongest ships out there, but once again I could sink some transport ships. However, the UK quickly send in battlefleets and I had to retreat. Where the UK thought to be smart to block the way back to Germany, I just went in the port of Trondheim and bombed any UK ships that came close. Within a few weeks I retreated the remaining parts of our fleet by port hopping back to Germany for repairs.

Though, we managed to sink another transport ship with our CAS doing naval strike on it just outside of the British coast. We were using our air force to make the UK anti submarine warfare as hard as possible and I think that the UK players will agree that the Luftwaffe didn't make their life too easy on the seas. Besides that the Luftwaffe helped sinking convoys too. I can't say how many convoys the UK had to build up till Barbarossa, but it was quite an IC investment they had to pay for neglecting the old submarines for a while.

One time I didn't pay enough attention (never received a message sadly enough) of the UK bombing a submarine that automatically retreated to Kiel. It was sunk after several bombing raids on the port. We will honour the brave crew with a monument close to the port. With the German Fleet losing it's battlecruisers, the British can move more free on the ocean ones again and in the next few months we lost a few other submarines because of that, but four German controlled submarines stayed alive till at least Barbarossa..

 

[feye1]

Battle of Gibraltar and the Dutch stockpile!

With the Balkans, Scandinavia and entire Western Europe under our control, there was only one target left to invade that would fit within our strategy: Spain + Gibraltar and The Netherlands.

The Dutch proved us to be a great trading partner and supplied us with a decent amount of rare materials. Though, with Japan soon DoW the United States, the Allies were able to declare war on The Netherlands too, which would mean I would never be able to get their pretty nice stockpile. Besides it would mean the Allies most likely would take the valuable provinces in the Far East, which would mean the Dutchies had to cancel trades with us sooner or later. So we decided to attack them in the fall of 1940. Due how the game works, you can take the capital on the normal way, by attacking it with ground units and just march to Amsterdam. But.. then Amsterdam has a land connection with Berlin, which means I get only a small part of their resources. So I attack the Dutchies with ground units on the border and start massive bombing campaigns on the Garrison in Amsterdam. I also paradropped two division on the capitals and even provided shore bombardement with the Kriegsmarine, that sneaked to the area after it was stationed a while in Cádiz first. We halted our advance with the ground units and managed to take down the Dutch capital. We quickly set up a resource convoy from Amsterdam to Wilhelmshaven and got the entire Dutch stockpile, meaning we grabbed over 20.000 rare materials. This was very important to us and one of the key moments in the year 1940 actually. Germany with it's unusual three IC runs and massive conquering all over the place, combined with total exploitation in France, Belgium, Poland and now also Holland has a daily loss of 180 rare materials; do your maths.. Even with the Dutch stockpile it will be tough to keep our industrial base alive for more then 1-1.5 year in Barbarossa, since we already burned a lot of rares and took all possible stockpiles. Luckely we still have friendly nations with plenty rare materials. Also we hope Japan can conquer some of the valuable provinces in the Far East.

German paratroopers attacking Amsterdam


At the start of the game, we as Axis never planned for building up the navies in Europe, so Suez and England weren't really viable strategies. Still, to kill the time between France and Barbarossa we decided to attack Nationalist Spain. It would also be a good opportunity to level some leaders, gain experience and get a strategic advantage over the Allies by taking Gibraltar.
To make the attack safer, we first attacked Vichy France, so we had a broad front where we could attack and overrun Spain. It would also be much better for the supply situation which is often tricky in Spain. Another good thing would be that it would improve the manpower gain of Italy, the IC base and the amount of leadership it can spend. All three things are welcome for Italy, who has to feed a pretty large army.


German-Italian forces crossed the border with Vichy France in the summer of 1940 and quickly took down the possesions it had in Southern France. The few divisions were caught by surprise and didn't even tried to fight back. Soon the forces were reinforced and lined up next to the Spanish border. The plan was easy: German panzers rushed through the first lines, while Italian infantry would take the territory behind and clean up the inferior Spanish units.

Battle of Madrid; good to level leaders a bit


Our intel showed that the British were preparing for a defense of Gibraltar. That would be interesting. First they seemed to have planned to defend the river line north of Gibraltar, but they lacked the units to do so and dug in around the provinces of Gibraltar-Marbella-Málaga. That are two mountain provinces and a city. Since we didn't planned with Gibraltar, we didn't build specialised units for it. Though, we noticed large amount of armoured divisions, mostly ARM MOT TD TD. We decided to bring in a new corps of MAR MAR AT AT AT, which would provide a large amount of hard attack.
Anyway, Spain didn't hold out long. We took the northern and eastern coast. Madrid was a cheap target to level our leaders a bit and get some extra resources for the Axis. We quickly moved to southern Spain, Italy annexed the country and we reorganised for an attack on the British positions.

We noticed large presence of the Royal Navy, with plenty of battleships, heavy cruisers and transport fleets in the area. We tried to bomb it, but the anti air from all those ships together was too much and we had to cancel the air attacks. Massive Axis forces attacked Marbella and pinned down the units in Málaga, while keep ongoing air attacks on the port of Gibraltar.

After hard battle we could break the British units in Marbella and split Málaga and Gibraltar. We then aimed for Málaga, as Gibraltar was the British strongest point. With our superior tank units, our specialised Marines + heavy AT and the Italian Infantry units we could take down Málaga. The English units in the city retreated on the transport fleets waiting outside. Sadly enough a miscommunication between the Traks (Italy) and me made him to attack the British Fleet in the area. I wanted him to stay in Valancia to be standby when Britain made a mistake, but he engaged the fleet. Sadly enough the Italian Heavy Fleet was beaten badly and destroyed at their way home. Also the battlefleet lost a fair amount of ships, including the battleship RM Andrea Doria. Luckely enough the remaining battleships could get away and retreat to Italian port.

Italians barely sunk British ships, only heavy damage was done..

The British units couldn't be destroyed at this point, but we could still take the Rock of Gibraltar and thus giving the Allies a huge disadvantage as they have to travel all around Africa to reach Suez or Far East. Anyway, we first had to take Gibraltar. That wouldn't be easy, as we didn't have the specialised units for it and Gunstick + Ikarases were defending the area with a large amount of units.
We surrounded Gibraltar and the first weak attack was to look how the defense looked like. It would be bloody, that's all I knew. Though it would also be a great opportunity to see if our leaders are really that skilled as the game says...

The final attack on Gibraltar started on 30 October. One corps of panzers and one corps of Marines + AT were attacking at start The progress was low, about 10% increasing to 14% after a few days. We lost loads of org, but so did the UK slightly. We had plenty of panzer divisions close and also a few infantry divisions + Italian units. We kept pressure on Gibraltar and every day we got a minor increase in the battle. After about 2.5 weeks I basically gave up, since I had to prepare for Barbarossa and needed units from Gibraltar for it. I expected the UK to bring in fresh divisions and already told Traks to take positions around Gibraltar to prevent UK breaking out immediately. Suddenly I noticed their armoured divisions were losing organisation very fast and I increased pressure. The armoured divisions had to leave and I decided to add in the final fresh units to deal with the last infantry divisions in the province. After exactly one month - on 30 November 1940 - Gibraltar was defeated and came under Axis control. The losses on both sides were very huge. The Axis - mainly Germany - lost 22.258 soldiers, whole the Allies lost 15.383 soldiers, all British ones. The total amount of casualties for this battle were 37.641, that is very huge in vanilla.

The massive battle of Gibraltar, with the Axis as winners!


Allies kept a large force in the area and later was told that they aimed for a fast counterattack, but Italy left quite some units in the area, while also some German infantry and tanks were kept around Gibraltar. An estimate of 30 divisions is protecting the Rock at this moment. Gibraltar will remain under Axis control for a while!

Another nice catch was that Britain has a 1 CA, 1 CL, 3 DD, 6 LC and 4 TP fleet in Tanger at that point. With Gibraltar under our control, that fleet can't leave Tanger at all and is now stucked there and has to wait till Allies retake Gibraltar. Meanwhile the remaining German-Italian submarines - four in total - were still raiding the Atlantic and sinking still a nice amount of British convoys, forcing the UK to keep building convoys till at least Barbarossa in order to secure it supply lines.