Amerika in Flames---The War is over and Peace treaty signed!

[supermax]

You are doing a great job, well done.

The only thing that I would suggest is considering an amphibious strike to the southern Oil fields. This would stretch teh Russians even further and provide some oil, which I think you are desperately going to need once your airforce gets to the front.

Well, you are reading my mind! I wasnt going to talk about it until it was a fact, but what the hell!!! If you look at one of the stills, you can see 3 blue dots in the south near the black sea... I have so far been able to accumulate 3 INF corps for the proposed landing. Nothing too fancy, just a new front, with no serious hope of taking the oilfields, but still... I should land in the thick of things, say end of june beg of july...

[supermax]

... And on the verge of general collapse... Pangen is going to have to retreat at some point or risk loosing a LOT more units. The germans are now in a position to achieve a major breaktrough in the center, by the sheer number of troops and the thin line of Russian infantry. In front of the germans, there is only planes...

[supermax]

For both sides.

After seeing horrendous losses on the Axis side, it was the turn of the Russians to pay dearly for their counter attack.

All other front are dead or quiet. I wont spend any assets on them i need to be 100% focused on Russia.

[supermax]

[massina_nz]

Max, presumably your PPs combined for Germany & Italy is greater than the Soviets. So even in an attritional battle you should be able to grind down the Soviets? Or is there some other limiting factor in 1944?

[supermax]

Yeah, combined PP is 196 for germans and 38 pp for Italians

But even then i am going to run out of Manpower. Overpowering him is exactly what i am thinking, i should get him to run out of PP... but i dont know whats going to happen i am weary of campaining under difficult condition like no air umbrella and then the winter is coming...

I am going to think hard before i play my next turn. I could easily take Kharkov then hook north or south, my whole army is repaired now and planes are finally going to be a factor... Should i keep pushing? My gut feeling tells me yes max go for it, you'll be lucky, but reasonable thinking tells me to take what i have and run!

I havent got any advice from anyone so far, but i would gladly take some at this point i really dont know what i shall do in the next 2 turns...

[Clark]

Yeah, combined PP is 196 for germans and 38 pp for Italians

But even then i am going to run out of Manpower. Overpowering him is exactly what i am thinking, i should get him to run out of PP... but i dont know whats going to happen i am weary of campaining under difficult condition like no air umbrella and then the winter is coming...

I am going to think hard before i play my next turn. I could easily take Kharkov then hook north or south, my whole army is repaired now and planes are finally going to be a factor... Should i keep pushing? My gut feeling tells me yes max go for it, you'll be lucky, but reasonable thinking tells me to take what i have and run!

I havent got any advice from anyone so far, but i would gladly take some at this point i really dont know what i shall do in the next 2 turns...

If you're going to go forward on the offense, you really have to come up with a way to get oil. It's the only way to make sure that your high powered offensive weapons can stay in use on offense. That being said, I don't have an easy solution of where to get such oil. But you've proved pretty resourceful throughout the game!

[Clark]

Also, given your style and accomplishments thus far in the game, it would be disappointing if you didn't at least go for Moscow and dream of getting to Omsk.

[timhicks]

I think you should go for it, I think the Russians made a big mistake by overloading in Iraq, and it would be a shame if you couldn't take advantage of that mistake. You might have a short window of opportunity where you'll have local superiority.

So instead of going for Moscow, or any particular target (that you wouldn't want to keep thru winter) you could kill a load of units before you have to pull back to your winter line.

You've still got 200 oil, so you could burn half of that on a last offensive, and regain your oil stocks over the winter.

By the way did that destroyer find out whether the Russian convoy has actually stopped ?

[afk_nero]

My 2 cents worth are that you are in serious trouble of major over stretching yourself.

I agree that you should try for Moscow but with Winter comng you are not in a happy place. I dont think that Oil is your major problem (As from what I can see this is slwoly increasing) but rather its manpower.

My advice would be as follows:

Forget Spain and any Neutral countries. Defensive in Middle East. Bolster Finland. Ensure that USSR dont get a singal convoy through.

Your PP advantage is not huge versus the USSR - so I would say that you are on even terms as he has better qaulity in his troops.

There is still a significant amount of time left. Before Russia hits you need to take Kharkov and the rest of the crimea - reason for the Crimea is that you can then attack behind Russian forces with 3 supply from the port or alternativly get behind current Russian defences and go for Rostov with a naval landing. If you could have taken the Crimea earlier then there would have been the option to go for Stalino and Rostov to cut of all his troops in the South (This may be hard to achieve now with winter closing in).

Other than that I would begin to hunker down - gain effectiveness for the winter.

On the side line during winter I would repair the destroyer and send a few subs to take out the Russian battleship in the North sea - look to gain control of the North sea during winter and this will then help secure Finland and open options for assaults in the North.

Moscow will need to wait until '44.

As for production - I would try to focus on more qaulity units to mitigate the loss in qaulity - this means producing mech units - you also need to win the air war - although I struggle to see this happening now. Your air is at such a disadvantage versus the Russians that this may just end up soaking PP's. Maybe use the air to focus on one area to win local supuriority before moving on.

All this is to be taken with a pintch of salt as you have done better than I could have hoped to have achieved. Whatever happens congratulations - this has been an excellent AAR.

[supermax]

I think you should go for it, I think the Russians made a big mistake by overloading in Iraq, and it would be a shame if you couldn't take advantage of that mistake. You might have a short window of opportunity where you'll have local superiority.

So instead of going for Moscow, or any particular target (that you wouldn't want to keep thru winter) you could kill a load of units before you have to pull back to your winter line.

You've still got 200 oil, so you could burn half of that on a last offensive, and regain your oil stocks over the winter.

By the way did that destroyer find out whether the Russian convoy has actually stopped ?

Nope i dont know if there are still one, ive potionned it on the tip of north american where it normally spawn, but since its been there it hasnt seen anything...

[supermax]

My 2 cents worth are that you are in serious trouble of major over stretching yourself.

I agree that you should try for Moscow but with Winter comng you are not in a happy place. I dont think that Oil is your major problem (As from what I can see this is slwoly increasing) but rather its manpower.

My advice would be as follows:

Forget Spain and any Neutral countries. Defensive in Middle East. Bolster Finland. Ensure that USSR dont get a singal convoy through.

Your PP advantage is not huge versus the USSR - so I would say that you are on even terms as he has better qaulity in his troops.

There is still a significant amount of time left. Before Russia hits you need to take Kharkov and the rest of the crimea - reason for the Crimea is that you can then attack behind Russian forces with 3 supply from the port or alternativly get behind current Russian defences and go for Rostov with a naval landing. If you could have taken the Crimea earlier then there would have been the option to go for Stalino and Rostov to cut of all his troops in the South (This may be hard to achieve now with winter closing in).

Other than that I would begin to hunker down - gain effectiveness for the winter.

On the side line during winter I would repair the destroyer and send a few subs to take out the Russian battleship in the North sea - look to gain control of the North sea during winter and this will then help secure Finland and open options for assaults in the North.

Moscow will need to wait until '44.

As for production - I would try to focus on more qaulity units to mitigate the loss in qaulity - this means producing mech units - you also need to win the air war - although I struggle to see this happening now. Your air is at such a disadvantage versus the Russians that this may just end up soaking PP's. Maybe use the air to focus on one area to win local supuriority before moving on.

All this is to be taken with a pintch of salt as you have done better than I could have hoped to have achieved. Whatever happens congratulations - this has been an excellent AAR.

Thanks for your great advice. I think that i shall not commit the Luftwaffe until i get soe measure of a new dogfight level that never seem to develop... Its almost a joke! hehehe

Also i am considering taking control of the Baltic for defensive reasons. You will see in my next post that i have decided to pull back all axis forces behind the Dniepr

[supermax]

Well, most readers will be very disapointed by the news, but i have decided that Wisdom should win over recklessness for the first time in this game... I am seriously over-extended and cannot sustain any more serious losses, i have no possibility of getting an effective air umbrella , since my fighters are still at an astonishing low and shitty lvl 2 dogfight, and finally the Russians have a great number of troops.

Strategically, even if say i achieve the destruction of 8-10 more INF, what difference will it make? Not much. Finland is a goner i wont spend too much ressoures on it, it will be very simple to defend the baltic coast from the sea since ive turned on the defensive, it will be like garrisonning the coast of France, only on a smaller scale.

I believe i can hold a solid defensive line on the Dniepr for a long time while preparing a secondary line of defense on the Prut and on a straight line from Riga to the Pripet marshes. This defensive posture will give me a 2 turn respite in which i will use the pp to buy a Manstein and high quality stuff.

The simple fact that i am retreating now makes this game a defensive one for the Axis until the end of it. There will be no more great offensive in 1944 for the final strategic price of this game, Moscow.

In The Middle East i will slowly let the russians get the upper hand as anyway the Suez Canal now has 0 strategic importance, and even if the russians overrun all of North africa it wont make a iota of a difference since they wont have any surface unit. I shall build a couple of subs with the Italians to prepare for the eventuality of the russians getting bold at sea in the MED.

I have all of North America, Britain and the Western World. The next cold war will probably be fought between the victorious western germans and the Soviets. hehehe.

VERY disapointing result i agree with all of you, but hey , REALITY catched me for the first time in tihs game and i have to face it and recongnize that i am where i am because of all those PPs, manpower and oil spent in this great conquest of the Western World

[rkr1958]

Maybe it's time to negotiate a cease fire with Russia and let the Cold War Begin.

[Clark]

I would consider moving the rest of your troops home from North America. Judging by how those partisans disappeared in the rest of the world, it may be that they are gone from all former Western Allied countries. Even if a few pop up, they aren't going to take too many cities between now and the end of the game. In any event, the occupation forces are worth more to you on the Eastern Front than in North America.

[supermax]

I would consider moving the rest of your troops home from North America. Judging by how those partisans disappeared in the rest of the world, it may be that they are gone from all former Western Allied countries. Even if a few pop up, they aren't going to take too many cities between now and the end of the game. In any event, the occupation forces are worth more to you on the Eastern Front than in North America.

I agree, they are in the process of doing so. There seems to be a lot of troops over there but there are 5 or 6 Garrison, 1 it INF and 2 German INF left. I will keep them on the spot for now just in case for Partisans.

2 INf are on the water as we write those lines and should land soon.

Defense against 1 front only will be easy for the germans, i might even be able to counter-attack if i make it count.

[AdmiralSarek]

Can you please post a picture of your tech screens for Germany and Italy so that we can see them.

[supermax]

All quiet on eastern front, not even 1 attack from the germans, we upgraded our troops.

continued retreat in the Middle East and i think its going to be a very quiet game till the end, unless i can re-start my offensive in 1944? Highly unlikely. We are now back at our original 43 starting point in Russia. defensives positions have been assumed.

[AdmiralSarek]

One more air lab and some luck with dog fight could see you right back into it.
I would think that this should happen more as close air support is already full.
Then you can crush the Russian fighters, well maybe

[AdmiralSarek]

Also have you considered going for organisation reather than industry as the prioty in the last section? Don't you have more than enough PP's now?