[Edited for typos and grammar, no significant content changes]
In april of 1940, Germany continues to beat up on France and sends the first real armies to the western border. Since Afghanistan seems to be falling apart under the British attack, I pull one of the two infantry corps from there and deploy it plus a newly complete mountain corps to Spaask Dalnij in the far east (Spaask Dalnij would be garrisoned by two light armored corps, but they're not finished yet).
On May 17, the field of grey provinces in Europe sends Luxembourg spiraling into a suicidal depression. They join the allies, and valiantly get annexed by Germany on the 26th, lasting two days longer than the week I gave them. While snickering over Luxembourg's foolishness, I deploy the infantry part of the two light armored corps to Spaask Dalnij along with an additional mountain corps.
On June 9 Colmar, the last redoubt for continental France, finally falls, so Germany will probably have a present for me in a week or two. Also around this time, my paratrooper research finishes and two corps make their way to the queue, though I've still got a while to go on air transports. I don't use paratroopers to take whole provinces behind the lines since that's kind of broken, just to either support an attack or take islands (I've been stuck before by an enemy holding one goofy VP province across water).
And on June 15th, the waiting's finally over. In the far east, the 2nd Far East Shock Army descends onto the point (Orogen Zizhiqui, the northernmost part of the Japanese holdings) while the assorted corps at Spasstk Dalnij march on Changchun and Tongua (the VPs in Manchukuo). Most of the Polish front simply braces for a German attack, but my Baltic armies do attempt to sieze Memel.
As part of a cunning plan to remind me not to assume things when making these notes, Hungary isn't in the Axis after all, which leaves the Third Armored Corps somewhat disappointed as they drive back to the Ukraine. Continuing my revolutionary tradition, Hungary becomes a Stalinist neutral country after a quick coup (and they'll stay neutral, since I don't have any reason to bring them into the war). Hungary's unusual neutrality doesn't mean that the Balkans are calm; Turkish and Soviet forces begin a broad march on Bulgaria from Istambul, while Rumanian and Russian forces cross the border to secure Belgrade.
With a new war starting, it's time to adjust production. Since demand for consumer goods drops with the start of war, I can drop that slider and still keep dissent down. Demand for military goods, however, has risen just a bit, so production and research now have equal budgets (previously it was about 2:1 in favor of research). Since wartime trading gets a big penalty and the USSR is pretty self-sufficient in resources, I cancel all trades on the world market. Also at this point I pick several reference units; if you click on a unit and hit CTRL-[1-9], then you can jump the screen to that army by hitting the number twice (once to select, once to center on). This makes it very easy to jump around when there are multiple battles; going from Memel to Belgrade to Manchuria just takes a couple of keystrokes.
After only two days, the Red Army (with plenty of Rumanians) scores the first victory of the war, siezing Belgrade and marching on Sarajevo. While the Germans might wish to claim a victory for seizing Kaunus, it was written off before the war even started and walking into ungarrisoned land isn't really cause for celebration. The Third Shock Army scores the first cockup of the war on the same day, as they start assaulting Memel two days before the rest of the force is due to arrive. Since Yugoslavia is obviously not offering much resistance, I rebase the Red Air Force from Rumania to the Pripet Marshes to support my main forces and deploy three Rumanian fighters to block the German Baltic Bombing Bash.
In the east, Manchurian forces at Jixi fall back from my forces on the 20th, and other than that Manchuria seems to be doing nothing. After taking heavy losses (around 50%) against 8 Japanese divisions, the 2nd Far East Army retreats back to mountains on June 26th. Two days later, Changchun falls to a super-light armored corps. Once infantry march into the mountainous province of Tonghua, Manchuria will be Russian... er, Soviet again. I think Manchuria has a resource problem, they don't seem to be putting up any kind of fight.
On June 25th, the Rumanians sieze Sarajevo against light resistance, but discoever that Yugoslavian troops retook Belgrade behind them. This was due to an error on my part; one of the infantry corps in the initial assault was supposed to stay behind as a garrison. The cut-off armies in Sarajevo and an infantry corps from Rumania proper converge to retake Belgrade, though a corps does garrison Sarajevo this time. Meanwhile, Turkish armies control half of Bulgaria and are marching to take control of the rest.
June 30th sees a quick victory in the Second Battle of Belgrade, and Rumania annexes Yugoslavia quite rapidly to forestall any further shenanigans. Rumanian forces move to garrison their new territory: 1 corps covers the mountainous border with Germany, the shock army covers the open border with Italy, and 2 divisions cover the beaches. I will note here that I'm deliberately giving the AI a break; as usual, he doesn't have (or move for a good while as you can see in the screenshots) any troops near the new front in Yugoslavia. It would be quite easy to seize a good chunk of Austria and Italy while he slowly reacts.
While cleaning up the Yugoslavian situation, I suddenly notice that the Italians have invaded Turkey by walking-on from Rhodes. This reminds me of why I always keep at least a corps in the capitols of my minor allies. (It's 'at least' because minors put all of their new divisions into the capitol, so the defensive corps grows and splits over time). A Rumanian and Soviet infantry corps race to support a Turkish fast corps (one mechanized and one motorized division) in clearing the Italian threat. It will be a while before any of them arrive, but in the east...
On July 1st, the super-light armored corps drive on to Hohot and Quiqhar to cut off any Japanese troops remaining in the north, though the troops that mauled the 2nd FE Shock Army seem to have been pulled away. On July 4th, a Soviet Mountain Corps siezes Tonghua, and Manchuria becomes a Soviet Socialist Republic. Since Japanese resistance in the north appears to have ceased, the single divisions of infantry along the border now march together to form two corps. On the 8th, the 1st FE shock army, one mountain corps, and one infantry corps begin to march on an apparently undefended Korea.
Meanwhile in the west, what looks like 15 German divisions are marching towards my army group at Lvov (22 divisions total), so Zhukov brings the 1st Armored corps and 1st cavalry corps to help them defend. On the 10th, an entire Russian corps fighting in Bulgaria dissolves, apparently from lack of supplies, which is odd but there are bigger fish to fry and I chalk it up to bugginess. On the 12th, 31 German divisions (love that fog of war) attempt to break the Russian line at Lvov. The red air force sweeps down to help the defenders, and a Rumanina and Russian infantry corps march in to give the Soviets a numerical advantage. By the 15th, though, the Red Army is losing pretty badly, so I order a general retreat. Retreat has changed a bit, as you no longer just click the stack and a province, but retreat each unit. As the units make it out to various provinces, I top of their rather battered strengths - their orgs are already low, and the fighting at Lvov was pretty brutal.
While the Battle of Lvov was raging in the west, on the 13th of July the first division to reach The Point engages and defeats a Japanese division that was newly deployed there. The Japanese AI seems to have a real problem in this game, they had a solid force on the border to start with but pulled all of it away then later deployed smaller forces. The problem is, those newly deployed forces start at org 0 and so can't fight at all. On the 15th, Red troops reach the top of Korea and rapidly secure control against disorganized opposition. One infantry corps and the 1st FE shock army march into Korea proper, while the other infantry corps guards against any Japanese attempt to cut them off. Three days later, the 6th infantry corps assembles at Jixi and marches to hold Tonghua. The single division marching through Hailar to assemble at the point routs and destroys two Japanese divisions which were probably also newly deployed. Since The Point is cleared, the 2nd FE shock army is ordered to march to the front lines - it is still fairly disorganized, but should be able to hold on. On July 20, the T-34s that will turn the super-light armored corps into proper light armored corps are finally ready, so they deploy in Manchuria and drive to join up with their infantry.
At the same time in the west, two german divisions attack the armored and (rather battered) cavalry corps holding zitijomir; the Red army seems to be somewhat ahead in the fight. On July 21st Sofia finally falls, but since Russian troops from Rumania helped the Turkish shock army in its incredibly long battle, the province goes to Rumania. On the 22nd, Zitijomir repels the pathetic 2 division German attack while a staggering 19 divisions hit the reorganizing forces at Rowne. I order the entire force at Rowne to retreat into the swamps since there's no way they can win. Rumania annexes Bulgaria, splitting the provinces 50-50 with Turkey. Both Russian corps in the Balkans pull back to help defend the Rumanian border against the German breakthrough.
In the east, on July 21st one infantry corps encounters Japanese troops at Heljo. While the Japanese forces are much weaker (orgs around 9), the benefits of the mountainous terrain mean that the Russian infantry get chewed up a bit, then manually retreat. However, the Japanese to the west of Korea seem to have left, so the infantry formerly holding the line march on now-unoccupied Dalien, Mukden, and Junzhou. On the 22nd, the 1st FE Shock Army encounters and immediately routs a Japanese division and moves on to Genzam.
So, after a bit over a month of fighting, what has happened? The Germans have traded all of Yugoslavia and Bulgaria (including their armies) for possession of Lvov and Rowne, which is not exactly listed as a profit in my book. While the hole at Lvov is disturbing, it's containable; Red Army forces can just hold on to the flanks and let the point go in deeper, then cut off the whole thing when its too spread out to defend. I would worry about the Germans rushing south to conquer Rumania, but there's no way they could conquer Greater Rumania quickly since they'd need to occupy Srajevo and Sophia to collapse them. After the initial adjustments, the northern part of my line is quite solid (being backed by foritifications and a river line helps). The Italian forray into Turkey is contained though not quite finished off. Overall, the USSR is in excellent shape in the west.
Greater Rumania and Turkey:
In the middle (Baku to Semipalantsk), nothing really has happened. British troops seem to be stuck on the remnants of Afghanistan, and the corps I have in Samarkand is not strong enough to launch an offensive but is far too strong for the Afghanis to take out. In the Far East, Japan has been badly mauled, with Manchukuo and 'Chinese Manchuria' firmly in the Soviet grasp. While Japanese resistance is stiffening, they would be in much better shape if they hadn't removed the entire front line. This does give me confidence in the forces I usually use to defend the far east. While I bulked them up in anticipation of war, that was enough to go on a general offensive; I strongly doubt the Japanese could have successfully attacked my armies if the 2nd FE Shock army, 1 infantry corps, and 1 mountain corps were removed.
It is always nice to see an AAR possessing both purpose behind the actions *and* attention to historical believability.
