Posts made by ausf

I played the Axis in that fashion. I left France for Italy (after softening) and had Germany concentrate on the British fleet and Sealion. It was an early success, knocked the UK out of the picture almost immediately and gave Italy a boost, but ultimately that cost Germany too much to defend a strong Russia.

Once Italy had to help Germany defend the Russian onslaught, the US had an open door through Africa.

The way I see it (in my limited scope) is even with Italy’s boost, they’re never strong enough to hold off the Allies. The only way is use Germany’s wealth (post Russia conquer) to build Festung Europa.

Feudal was my first Avalon Hill game, I played it for hours on end with my friends.

Then I bought The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and Luftwaffe, but never scared up enough interest to get playing (this was late 70s, early 80s).

Fast forward to present and after years of beating each other up on A&A Global, my sons and I picked up copies of Luftwaffe, PanzerBlitz, Third Reich, Midway and Bismarck.

Started with Bismarck, having a lot of fun so far, but makes us want to jump into a game of '41 for simplicity.

I think it’s balanced, but Allies have to play the long game, whereas Axis has fun from the onset.

In many games played with my son, Russia, Germany, England and Italy have all fallen, but in all but one (because of a lone Anzac transport with one infantry walking into a smoldering Japan), Washington or Tokyo have never been taken, the game has been called before the actual invasion since there was no escape and we didn’t see a point of going through the slog.

I just assumed railway movement was considered in the movement. Those are pretty large distances to cover and it was still the era of steam, not bullet trains.

German armor, especially heavies mostly moved by rail since long road marches were hard on equipment.

It is a good point regarding different scales of rail though. Perhaps a movement penalty where armor can only move 1 on foreign soil (excluding Africa). That reflects rail movement.

Personally, I think blitzing is too powerful anyway. Maybe for mech inf as a fast moving scout, but not armor later in the war.

Yes, Blitzkrieg in France, but that was lightly armored fast moving tanks that wouldn’t survive once T-34s were on the battlefields. Bad roads, long distances and formidable opponents cut that out. US was bogged down in Normandy fight through hedgerows and ran into problems after since French rail was decimated in bombing.

I tend to get stuck on either a subject of interest or an author and read my way through a list until I’m sick of it.

I finished Clay Blair’s two volumes on U-boats (The Hunters, The Hunted) which essentially covered every recorded sortie during the war, including personal information of both sides. Fascinating and exhausting.

That peaked my interest in British X-craft, so I grabbed a copy of Target Tirpitz, which peaked my interest on both the Bismarck, Nazairre Raid as well as manned torpedoes, so I have a few books either on hold at the library or on the way in the post while I finish Tirpitz.

I’ve been reading about WWII for about 20 years now and every book opens a whole new interest or bit of the war I haven’t heard of before.

My wife wonders why I don’t read fiction, but this stuff is wilder than anything any author could invent.

I like the idea of differentiating tanks.

I’d take it a step further:

Only Russia and Germany can have heavies, cost ten like a fighter, but take two hits because off armor. So, you’d basically have a low movement fighter that has less defensive strength, but takes more punishment. No repairs, replace with medium to keep track.

Japan and Italy only have light tanks. Lights would be treated like mobile artillery, giving bonus to attacking infantry (mech or not) and cost 5.

US and UK can have lights and mediums, maybe even knock the US cost down to 5 being they produced 60,000 during the war, compared to 2000 Tigers.

How about mediums/lights both defend on 2 when facing a heavy?

My son and I have '41, '42 and both '40s ('14, D-day and Guadalcanal too) so we have Tigers, Panthers, T34s, JS-2s, but would need to represent lights somehow.

I never liked the Tiger I molded in Japanese colors…

@CWO:

Allied convoys were well protected by the end of the war, but in the early years the Royal Navy and the Royal Canadian Navy were woefully short of escort vessels, especially the more capable types like destroyers (and the later innovatrion of frigates); they depended heavily on little corvettes to fill the gap.  Moreover, ASW tactics and weapons in the early years of the war were still primitive, and Allied escort ships were hampered by the fact that they only had long-wave radar, which was too imprecise to reliably pick out a surface submarine from the surface wave clutter of the ocean.  It was only around 1942 or 1943, as I recall, that the more precise centimetric radar sets became available in large numbers.  It also took until the middle of the war to close the dangerous mid-Atlantic air gap (a.k.a. the Black Pit) with long-range shore-based planes like the Liberator and with escort carriers.

I don’t know the track record of troop ships in general, but one type which was very succesful in that role were ocean liners (like the Queen Elizabeth and the Queen Mary).  Not only could they carry vast numbers of troops, they were also so fast that no enemy submarine could catch them; even in a rare chance encounter, a U-boat would have difficulty lining up a torpedo shot against such a fast-moving target.  Liners would typically sail unescorted for that reason.

Early war ASW was woeful. US didn’t even convoy along or blackout the coast early on. Hedgehogs, radar, miniaturization of radar to fit in aircraft, Leigh lights, etc was key as well as Huff Duff and Enigma decrypts.

Jeep carriers were devastating to U-boats, Wildcats and Avengers worked in teams, the Wildcat strafing to drive the sub down so the Avenger followed and dropped a homing torpedo. So effective, Donitz changed tactics to forbid U-boats from diving when confronting AC. That was the reason for the larger ‘wintergarten’ on the Type VII/41s to increase Flak capability so they could fight it out.

My favorite convoy related story was a slow moving group from US to Africa. For some reason, they shipped Shermans and their engines separately. Many freighters loaded with Shermans made it through, one was sunk. Guess which. A new load of engines were rushed to NY and a fast freighter left on it’s own, overtaking and landing in Africa before the convoy.

That all applied to convoys in general though, troopships were always protected to the greatest extent.

This is an interesting thread. There’s a lot of insight from long time players that making points that I wouldn’t think of until it was tried a few times.

After reading Clay Blair’s exhaustive 2 volume work on U-boats (basically every single recorded sortie during the entire war) it’s clear that Allied transports were well protected. The USN’s primary goal was no troopships would be lost and with the exception of a single loss in the Med, they completed that goal. They were so concerned with that loss, it was never disclosed until well after the war.

Japan on the other hand, not so much. Troopships were expendable and torpedoed at will by US subs, although tragically with prisoners aboard.

In my mind it really should be up to the side to protect. That said, nothing cheeses me more than an lone bomber flying long distances and wiping out a group of transports with impunity. Strategic bombers were horribly inaccurate against ships, especially small ones.

Transports did have AA capabilities, early in war armed freighters were open season to U-boats, as opposed to others that were required to be boarded and evacuated before sinking. Armed transports were also effective against U-boats since conning towers were easily penetrated, plus ramming. Freighters were often disguised with enclosures that hid guns that opened fire when the U-boat closed to use their 88 (torpedoes were very expensive and unreliable).

My son and I are going to try a compromise:

Unprotected transports-
Can defend against aircraft and subs on 1.
Cannot defend if any other surface ship is present.

Sub(s) v unprotected transport(s): sub attack value increases to 3, the transport(s) roll one defense die per exchange, regardless of number ships, otherwise the battle progresses normally, i.e. until resolved or broken off. Reflects the ease that U-boats dealt with stragglers.

Plane(s) v unprotected transport(s): each air unit can battle one transport only. If there are two AC and five unprotected transports, only two can be engaged during that turn. Torpedo and dive bombers  carried one ship-sinking ordinance and usually had very limited time over targets. The transports would be scattering and evading, a squadron of aircraft wouldn’t be able to stay on the scene to sink 6 groups of transports.

I may be missing a rule or something, but to me Gibraltar is the lynchpin to the US invasion.

Once taken, it allows access to all of Italy, Southern France, Normandy and Holland. If the US builds up to 4 loaded transports and escorts before T4, then buys 4 each (transport, tank, infantry) at 64 IPC for a few turns, it’s very hard to defend since there’s wave of 8 pieces each turn.

If the UK ties up Italy, Germany is exposed on three fronts while fighting Russia.

I just finished a game with my son. He was pressing Moscow and had a sizable force in Normandy, but  after landing in Southern France and surviving the first wave, with RAF softening from UK, the next wave hits Normandy, then the fighters go in to defend and no matter how much Germany builds on France, it can’t stop the buildup as UK bridges.

I had the UK take Denmark as a pause to keep the German Navy enclosed, but ultimately a destroyer screen by the UK outside of Denmark, plus a simple destroyer screen and roving Battleship for the US
to protect the transport cycling is enough to sustain.

Am I missing a rule regarding Gibraltar? If so, a naval base in Morocco would do the same (provided the Med was clear of Italian Navy).