Morris vs Plaid (Allies surrender)

[Plaid]

Here comes another game against Morris, pretending to further explore balance issues.

This time I will play allies, and I feel like I know how to defend against that agressive axis style.

First of all we know that Morris dont bother building kriegsmarine and hunting convoys. It means that I should not invest in ASW weaponry aswell as will get lots and lots of convoy PPs.

So screw ASW labs, lets develop artillery instead, always helpful thing.



Also we know that Sealion will never happen, so why not to send british troops to France?



Here are starting british corps and mech, aswell as both canadian garrisons. All units renamed to hide their origin.
French will keep producing garrisons, so France will hold for long, consuming axis resources.


Also there was no any german sub seen so long at all, so they are expected to ambush my canadian transports. DDs will try to escort them (4 DDs are not enough to properly guard 3 transports, but we will try).

[Plaid]

Chapter I - French campaign

Here goes traditional Low Countries invasion on the first fair turn of 1940.

Only 1 new german fighter seen so far, other units are old.



Allied forces form their defencive positions. Transports from Canada are on the way, hopefully we will unload them in France.

[Plaid]

French campaign : turn 2.

Axis turn :


Allied turn :


Noteable events : we tryed to destroy german armor, but it survives at 2 steps.
Our transports attacked by all 3 german subs.Lost 2 mech and 5 fighter steps. Escorts engaged subs for moderate damage.

[Plaid]

French campaign : turn 3.

Axis turn:


Allied turn:


Noteable events : another german armour opened for counterattack, reduced to 3 steps.
Transports from Canada were not attacked by german subs anymore. Subs with their 15 movespeed have no chance to catch up now. Transports redirected for England insteaf of France, as they have taken some damage and need repairs, instead of sending them into battle.

[Plaid]

French campaign : turn 4.

Axis turn :


Allied turn :


Noteable events : german paradrop. Transports from Canada arrived to british ports with no further damage.

[Plaid]

French campaign : turn 5.

Axis turn :


Allied turn :


Noteable events : none

[Plaid]

French campaign : turn 6.

Again no noteable events, dont bother posting two pictures, one is enough.

[Plaid]

French campaign : turn 7.



Noteable events : end of organised defence, as germans reach Paris from the south-east. BEF position near Lille is not useful anymore, so units march to coastal hexes to get their evacuation in case France surrender right next turn. Still we hope to hold 1 more turn, as Paris is defended by full strength 8 entrenchment corps with +1 defence leader. Also northern approach to the city is still relatively well guarded and we dont expect axis attack from all 6 directions so far.

By the way 0 steps of convoys were sunk so far. Nice PPs, what can I say.

[richardsd]

nice job, but I would still expect Paris to fall next turn

[Cybvep]

Good counter-attacks against ARMs. This should cost Morris some oil and PP. Be sure to post the end results of Fall Gelb.

[Plaid]

French campaign : turn 8.
Axis go all-out against Paris, so we lost the city. All 3 British units were left alone and evacuated without any damage.



Casualties :


Have to note that armor is mostly real tank casualties, not mech ones, so it cost axis quite a deal of resources.

[Plaid]

Chapter II - before Barbarossa

I am not going to write in great detail, what happens, as mostly nothing happens in fact.

On the turn after Fall of France axis launch combined offencive against Denmark and landing in Norway.

In Norway I used Ronnie's defence strategy, moving garrison forward from Oslo.



Axis had bombers in range, so it was not supposed to work (really no problem to kill 2 step GAR with even one TAC, and Morris had atleast 2 in range), but it did!
Another illustration of careles Morris' playing style.

Also looks like all italian units including garrisons left Lybia.

Egypt join the war at the end of this turn, time to go take all this unguarded land.

[Diplomaticus]

M's favorite trick for 'defending' LIbya is to leave a gar in a city until the enemy approaches, then at the last minute to transport away. If you can block his path with subs, you can score an easy kill.

As you probably know, M also tends to be super careless with his navy. You can probably draw him into some unfavorable naval combats early on.

[Plaid]

Short summary of what happened in 1940-41 winter

- axis captured Yugoslavia

-allies captured Syria

- we landed commando unit in Bergen and parked naval units there to start intercepting swedish ore. No sign of axis navy to oppose us seen so far.



- we now control Lybia.Italian infantry with defencive leades sit in Tobruk and Tripoli. Its possible to smoke them out right now, but casualties will be quite high. Also this leaders will be free and placed elsewhere.

[Plaid]

Here comes our plan of USSR defence :

We will concentrate our efforts in the northern sector, as axis troops supposed to be much weaker here.



Every posion marked with dot will be occupied by corps or mech unit, which will try to dig in before germans arrive and hold their attacks. In places marked with stars 2 our best leaders will be placed - Zhukov and Konev.

German infantry with little or no air support supposed to have major troubles and heavy casualties crosing the rivers, but I dont think we will be able to hold this position forever. In case of major casualties or threat of being pocketed troops should retreat to the east, screening Moscow and Leningrad.
Idea of this defence is to disturb Morris' plan of his straight offencive to Stalingrad and Caucassus. Probably he will redeploy here some armor and air units from the south, or even change his offencive direction to threat our position from the south near Kiev.



On the south there is no plan of organised defence, as there is no way to stop all this mass of armour. We only deploy some delay garrisons here and there (aswell as in the northern sector).
Also lots of cheap commanders purchased to rise effectiveness of this garrisons.

Note huge UK PP reserve.Nothing to spend this at for now.
Our plan may change, but current one is to get USA onboard and hit axis in France with everything we've got in early 1942. Thats lots and lots of high tech troops (all british convoys run free, I did not invest single UK or USA PP into ASW warfare or expensive strategic bombing campaign - they all will be used to build tanks, mech, tactical bombers, fighters and leaders).

Hopefully I will not lose bulk of soviet army and all key cities (Leningrad, Stalingrad, Moscow) in 1941 campaign with my risky forward defence on the east, since I am sure that Morris will not be able to hold against all-out western attack in France AND still be offencive in USSR in 1942.

[Cybvep]

You need a plan to contain the southern strike somehow. Otherwise, Morris will move northwards and threaten many of your northern formations. IMO you should have some units ready near Stalingrad and Maikop.

[Plaid]

Chapter III - Barbarossa

Here is a picture of what actually happen. I am quite unhappy with this 2 armor units (including SS one) going northern way.



Anyway we man our planned positions and entrench. Dnepr line seems unholdable, but I still plan to draw additional units from southern push and further delay them with organized retreat in forest terrain. Maybe will lose some corps in the proces, but I am (over)confident that I will be able to avoid major disaster here.

In the south german forces sweep my defencive garrisons and going to rush straight for Stalingrad and other places they want. Also germans land their suicide corps and paratrooper in Maikop area as usual. Good! Normally its hard to score any experience for soviet soldiers in 1941 summer, but here is an opportunity.

[Plaid]

Barbarossa : turn 2.

This turn I had to evacuate the westest part of my defencive line because of SS armor breakthrough. Its only minor retreat for now and it will deffinetely save some troops, since we are still out of reach of bulk of german infantry here.



Still nothing like organised defence in the south - simple dont have troops for it.



Looks like few germans going to turn to Kiev instead of following straight pass to Stalingrad.



If it going to happen, I will retreat. My troops are expected to hold against infantry trying to cross river, not against armor flanking attack. Any german armor unit involved into chasing through this forest terain is minor victory for us - this tanks will burn oil and will not be doing something useful elsewhere.

[Plaid]

Barbarossa : turn 3.

More fighting retreats, while main section of our line (From Vitebsk to Gomel) is ready to be tested by direct german attack.



Sadly Morris seems serious about flanking my positions from the south, Kiev going to fall this turn, opening road to Gomel, so major retreat is very likely to happen next turn.



Good news are that our Black Sea fleet done sinking romanian destroyers, leaving germans in Maikop without supply. Should kill them now before they linked with other troops.

[Plaid]

I have lost screenshots from one or two turns, but nothing major changes.
We keep trying to hold the line and retreat only when totally necessary.



This approach led to heavy casualties for both sides, sad part is that axis lose steps while we lose entire units. Still holding the line is main role of soviet corps units, they are quite useless on offence.


In the south things are more tricky - axis seems going straight for oilfields ignoring stalingrad. So my last reserve of Stalingrad front moves forward and will attempt to cut this axis spearhead from supply (as ruined city of Krasnodar does not provide supply). Since I invested into defencive infantry line to the north I cant mount all-out attack for destruction here, but diversion may work. Currently all this mechs are out of axis sight and ready to reach black sea if noone spot them.

Axis tanks here have really low readiness by the way, with 60 they need 2-3 attack to kill even garrison (so with 6 units total its very slow for them to break even weakest defenders).