Don't Mention The War - Part 40 via Facebook

AUSGAME 2023

JUL/AUG 1944

AXIS DISASTER ON THE EASTERN FRONT AND TRIPOLI FALLS.

Reinforcement, and arguable the most important roll for 1944 which the Allies win. The first roll for the initiative was won by Russia with a 7 v’s the German 4, the Axis demand a re-roll (quite rightly +1 shift to the Allies) and Germany rolled a 6 with the Russian rolling a 5 +1 (6) with the Allies winning ties they get the jump on the Axis with two impulses in a row at a critical time. With this roll this game has shifted significantly in the Allies favour, and unless it ends at the first opportunity for the Axis it is going to be very tough on the Axis to recover this game.

Allied 1st Impulse – Weather roll 1 (+1) for a 2 – fine weather everywhere, except rain in the N Monsoon, The US and CW both take a Naval/Land actions and Russia an Air/Land all majors spending O-Points for the double actions. France takes a Naval to sail escorts and its three TPTs, with China an Air so that it can bomb the Japanese line.

The US flies some long range NAVs into the China Sea, reinforces the Pacific Fleet sitting in the 2 box and sends out 5 x US/CW subs to search for the Japanese Convs in the Sea of Japan and China Sea – no finds as two 7’s are rolled. The Japanese Army in China remains in supply as the Japanese Conv in the China Sea is not found. In the Baltic, the Norwegian Convs under the Comd of German Offrs were not so lucky as the CA’s Uganda and Ceylon both find and quickly despatch them, once again cutting off the Swedish iron ore. The CW fleets sail off the Coast of Italy and picks up land units to bolster the garrison in Sicily and Yugoslavia. GS on the Western Front are favourable as the INF stack defending the Dyle River is all inverted, and several Axis Corps and the Rommel HQ are inverted. The US launches a single attack across the Dyle River rolling average for a 20 B, losing their second ENG and another half invert and sending the defenders back to Berlin but they have now crossed another river, and gained a hex adjacent to Germany. In Libya’s capitol the Italian garrison is inverted and subsequently surrenders to the CW forces, with Tripoli now in Allied hands, the Italian Empire crumbles and the Govt of Mussolini collapses and flees North. The Allies now hold Taranto, Tripoli and have a larger GV so Italy will be forced to surrender at the end of Jul/Aug 44. This is one year later than historical, but then D-Day was one year earlier, so there is an inverse Zen balance on reflection. An Italian stack in Yugoslavia is eliminated, hastening the withdrawal of the Italians back home.

On the Eastern Front, Russia launches multiple GS with their unlimited air action successfully GS multiple stacks against both AGN, AGC and AGS. On the recently opened Sino-Russian front, they also successfully GS the mountain defenders in Manchuria who are now all inverted and OOS - but the Russian attack there is a disaster as a Japanese bomber gets cleared through and an awful dice roll (3) from the Russian sees the dreaded ~14 as they loose three units and the Japanese only a single Div, a full invert and Japan keeps the mountain hex. Better results on the Eastern Front although another below average roll against AGN sees the inverted stack retreated and another half invert – not the start the Russian wanted on the 1st impulse on a long clear weather turn. The Results against AGC was as expected a +19 attack against the lonely Von Lieb HQ sees him eliminated and the Russian MECH and ARM exploit deeper into E Poland and even better news, a TOTT roll against the two defending German MECH/ARM behind the Dniester River sees both quality units eliminated and Russian GBA cross the Dniester River and into Rumania, breaking the river-line. An attempted strategic bombing of Ploiesti by the Russians is aborted as they lose a bomber and their ftr cover is aborted.

A long first session that started late – next session will see the Axis response with Germany having too many inverted units on the front lines and too many holes to fill with too few troops – sounds very familiar. Worse for Germany, the Luftwaffe has again performed very badly losing 7 planes in one impulse – they now have 15 Pilots – they will not need to build any more for the rest of the game and may start retraining them for land operations – Luftwaffe Pilot Divisions? Italy will be forced to surrender at the end of this turn, so this impulse do they cover the withdrawal North of the German units in Italy or do they attempt suicide assaults in an attempt to inflict casualties on the Allies knowing that they will be simply disarmed during the turns conquest phase. Japan’s issue is that the US Army has now cut the Japanese expeditionary army in half and their Army in China can only by tenuously supplied by Conv/Tpt via the China Sea, which is occupied by US Acft and the Pacific fleet.

Slow steady hex by hex grind on the Western front by US land forces.

Eastern Front - EOT and start of A/J - two turns in a row will do this.

AGC is decimated and the breakthrough into E Poland will be hard to contain.

Russia's one attack v Japan squiggly 14 lose 3 units, full invert 

and Japan keeps the Mtn hex.

Casualties - 1st Allied Imp - the Luftwaffe suffered badly.