1955 (continued)
With my fleets under repair at Pearl Harbor, I tried using my strategic bombers to attack the USN while it was holed up in San Francisco. It would be really annoying if they just moved elsewhere and it would become a game of whack-a-mole. Unfortunately, my air strikes didn't seem very effective as after a few strikes my squadrons were under strength and appeared to peel off just before actually attacking. With the US reinforcing the region with aircraft to bolster their defences, this also became a risky tactic. I might lose a significant portion of my bombers in a futile attempt to damage their fleet. So I brought the bombers home to Pearl and brought them up to full strength. I would make one more all-out effort, concentrating both my naval and air fleets on the San Francisco port.
Meanwhile, the Brazilians arranged for a distraction, as another peace treaty expired and they declared war on me. After landing in Rio de Janeiro and taking a few more northern provinces, they offered me peace on excellent terms: the west half of their country, in exchange for peace. No doubt that offer is only valid until the current treaty expires, but that's fine with me. It does seem a bit silly to me that the AI is completely clueless in this respect. Minor nations which should be happy that I'm not at war with them should just stay out of the war instead of declaring war on the biggest kid on the block, especially when that kid has huge armies with tanks stationed right on their border.
1956 - Victory at last?
After bringing my 5 strategic bomber wings of 4 squadrons each, unescorted so as not to limit their range, up to strength again, I positioned my fleets, or at least those parts which were ready, on station just outside San Francisco Bay. Then the US surprised me again, by venturing out of port. I won a battle in which both sides were damaged, but not that seriously, only to watch my fleets end up a sea zone away. Odd. I ordered them to return, reinforced them and a little later my bombers were coming in. It was fun to see as they just kept coming, one after the other, rotating exactly the way I had wanted them to. I had set them to keep doing a port strike on San Francisco until below 4 percent strength, hoping I wouldn't lose too many aircraft and bag at least a number of their carriers. Although it looked awesome, it didn't seem to have much effect. The fleets holed up in San Francisco were huge and although they were damaged, I didn't get any messages of any ships being sunk. Finally, my bombers were down to almost zero strength and I ordered them to break off, after having lost only one squadron, which wasn't too bad. I ordered one last round of carrier strikes on port by my fleets just as I did so, again to little effect. I only caught one or two destroyers attempting to escape the mayhem. Just to be sure, I checked the National Navy stats and lo and behold: I had sunk at least -10- fleet carriers. Double checking in the 'sunk ships' stats confirmed it. Now I should be able to go toe to toe with the USN. Although they still have more fleet carriers than I have, I have more light carriers.
So, a good start of 1956. Of course, now I have to wait again until my fleets are repaired, but I think it was well worth it. One bomber squadron for 10 carriers? Not bad. Finally we're getting somewhere.
1956 (continued)
Well, that was worth waiting for! My air armada of strategic bombers met some resistance, but was able to reduce a large part of the USN to scrap metal! Serves them right for hiding in San Francisco Bay like children afraid to let go of mommy's skirt! Not what I had expected from the mighty US fleets, but I'll take what I can get. It seems clear that port strikes by my fleets alone, which have only one or two CV each, just are not that effective, whereas the Mya-4 'Bison' bombers are. Five wings of them, attacking in rotation, further reduced the US Navy from about 11 CV to 5 and from 15 BB to 13. This moves the United States Navy back to third largest, after the Red Fleet and the Royal Navy. My navy, as a result of the air force doing the thing they couldn't accomplish, is hardly damaged and I've sent them back to Pearl. When they are well rested, I will keep the Pacific, Black Sea and Mediterranean fleets at Pearl, while sending the Northern and Atlantic Fleets back to Guatemala. In addition to these five main fleets, each with one or two CV and 5 CVL, but only the Northern and Pacific Fleets with two Sovietsky Soyuz class BB, I have my Reserve Fleet and two other transport fleets, as well as some smaller transport fleets elsewhere. The main fleets will tangle with the USN if it comes out to play, the transport fleets will not only reinforce the front if necessary, even if I'll be hard pressed to find even more divisions to throw into the fight, they will also carry out a forced landing on the coast if the opportunity arrives. For that purpose I've assembled one group of three Marine divisions at Pearl and two groups of three divisions at Guatemala. I think the geographic layout of the US lends itself to an armoured assault from the East Coast, whereas in the West I could get stuck in the mountains. I can support any landings with Inf and reinforce them with plenty of Arm / Mech or Arm / Mech / Mot units. Considering they still overwhelming advantage of the US Army, timing will be essential if I am to attempt any landing operation.
My strategic bomber wings will need a while to get back up to full strength again, but once they are I will turn them loose in the ground attack role. I'm hoping to a) reduce the overwhelming numerical superiority of the American ground forces and b) blast a gap in their defences either in the south or on the West Coast. As of now US land forces are not covering the US - Mexican border, but once I attack Mexico from the south, they will no doubt roll up to the border and most likely cross it in a fierce counterattack.
I'm currently preparing for the final assault and if things continue to go as well as they are now, I may finally, at long last, be able to give the go-ahead for the final assault on Mexico and the US late this year. *fingers crossed* So far Mexico is a nice buffer zone between me and the US. It seems that Mexico at least has no desire to become cannon fodder in a war it has nothing to do with, so it is one of only a few nations which hasn't absent-mindedly DOW-ed me after not having done the math correctly. One big can of whoop-ass + one small, outdated army = a spanking you won't lightly forget and possible annexation in your future. Also, if you -are- going to DOW the player, please actually have a plan! Yes, I'm looking at you AI! *frowns sternly* All it got you was plenty of dissent and a wasted campaign in the Pacific which led nowhere.
While I was waiting for my fleets and planes to get back up to strength I took the time to take out central America, advancing from Panama to Guatamala. I noticed that, unlike Brasil, most of the Central American countries had considerable navies and air forces for their size, but only one (1) division each. What's up with that? Several of them also had had the nerve to DOW me. So I annexed them. Happy now? I'm now building up defences in Guatemala, building airfields or repairing existing ones in neighbouring countries. Furthermore I'm moving virtually all my forces to Guatemala and neighbouring Belize City, which I captured without opposition from the British. Meanwhile US planes are roaring overhead as due to relocating my air forces my squadrons are at low org and unable to fight back. Fortunately, they've not managed to completely destroy my air fields so far, perhaps also because I've prioritized all of these provinces.
By now I've cancelled nearly all new construction, except for the construction of even more Inf, more fighters, some more strategic bombers and some land forts, air fields, etcetera. I've moved the 'upgrades' slider to about 250. Since I've conquered half of the world, am even now building some additional IC, have completed the costly reactor run in Rybinsk and have researched practically all techs including all current IC related techs, I've got plenty of IC and now dwarf the US in production. So by all measures, I've won the game. I can outbuild the US and any of its allies as most of those are very weak. So basically all I need to do now is -not- drop the ball and not allow my land forces to get crushed by US armour. But although they even now have quite some numerical advantage in Arm, Mech, Mot and most importantly HQ divisions, I'm hoping to both reduce that advantage by another strategic bombing campaign in the ground attack role and to outfight them somehow. I'm kind of hoping that one of three things will happen. I'm hoping to either be able to breach any front they form towards the South or advance fast enough to take advantage of them repositioning their forces. If that isn't possible, I'm hoping to be able to breach their coastal defenses during or after the phase where they reposition their forces. In the first case, I will try to advance north until I run out of map in Central Canada, in the second case, I'll settle for a large sized pocket filled with US troops desperate to get out. I will probably have at least two advantages, namely that my commanders are mostly experienced by now and that my forces are being upgraded to the most modern standard as we speak.
As for the air force, aside from my strategic bombers, my strength lies mostly in a somewhat larger sized Int force, which will have to take care of the large advantage the USAAF has in fighters. But for now I will have to let my relocated planes get up to strength. As with the strategic bombers, I will only turn them all loose once they are all at peak capacity. As for relocating, I'm by now scavenging forces anywhere and sending them to Central America. It's a good thing I took out all of the US transports as they could have really hurt me now if they had finally decided to move their forces around.
This will be the most important battle of the game. Once I DOW Mexico, all bets are off. So, if you're watching, stay tuned, because we will be
right back!
1956 (continued)
Well, stategic bombers were perfectly useless against ground targets. The stacks are too high and I can't order them to concentrate on one single province, so they strike all over California, meanwhile suffering attrition. So I went back to an early savegame and reduced the USN fleet in San Francisco a bit more. I'm still building up my forces, but I can't bring myself to DOW Mexico yet. The odds are still stacked against me. Even Mexico has 24 Int, so combine that with the Allied forces and they might be able to wipe out most of my air forces in an instant. So, back to the drawing board and reopen those production lines again. I'm now heavily producing aircraft for another year or so and after that, we'll see where that gets us.
Meanwhile, something is rotten in Denmark. Or rather, Western Africa. The US AI seems frozen there. I noticed a stack of US forces combined with zero strength allied forces and poked them a bit and lost a battle as I had only three divisions and the US had a lot more. Expecting a counterattack that might end with me losing West Africa, the AI amazed me by ... doing absolutely nothing. It doesn't seem to notice it has a huge overwhelming (local) advantage now that I'm withdrawing most of my forces from around the world in order to fill Central Africa with a couple of beautiful superstacks. Even so, my armies are only about the size as those the US has in each and every coastal province with a beach. So, if they do push into Mexico, although I am beginning to doubt that at the moment, they might still overwhelm me.
As I was typing this, it suddenly strikes me that it would be a big disappointment if after all that preparation, the AI would just decide to call it a day and allow its units to be enveloped and crushed. So just to be sure and I did a little test game. Although Mexico did not immediately join the Allies, the US promptly attacked across the Mexican border and proceeded to beat my armoured forces (I must have mislaid quite a few of them, as I was sure I had plenty more) handily while as soon as I reached a border province (perhaps this just coincided with a new diplomatic message, but I doubt it). So, taking Mexico isn't the problem, but at least the US AI has not just curled into a ball in a corner somewhere, crying about how unfair the world is with Commies everywhere and hardly anyone left to trade with...
Nevertheless, I just don't understand what the AI is 'thinking'. Nations DOW me when they have little reason to do so, other than that I am big and scary and Commie Red, only to offer me peace about a year later, only to DOW me again once that peace treaty runs out only to... You get the point. The US at least has been consistent in its enmity of me throughout and it was only the non aggression pacts that I forced on them that allowed me to prepare for the Big Fight (tm). But now that I'm practically on their doorstep, while leaving gaps in my beach defenses here and there, the UK AI is waking up and moving into North Africa again as I have no mobile forces there anymore and it senses a weakness. But the second biggest kid on the block just sits there. They are not out of supply, unlike their allies, their air forces keep harassing me to the point all I want is for them to crash and burn, commander, but instead of seizing those opportunities I give it, it is just sitting there. Why waste a perfectly good army in Africa if you have no use for it? Why not use some allied transports (the US is fresh out) and ship some forces here or there and at least annoy me enough until I have to draw away forces elsewhere? Why not use the USN, that wonderful war machine, instead of allowing it to be bombed to smithereens? Why are those fighters roaring overhead on the East Coast while in the West they have to make use with the left overs? The AI can fight its way out of a wet paper bag, but it sure doesn't play well strategically.
In any case, let's stick with plan B. Or some other letter, I've had a few so far. So let's build up my air forces and a few more armoured units for the big finale. Come what may, I am attacking 1959 at the latest. Even so, that is really late in the game. Well, better luck next time, I've already learned a lot from this game to do better the next time I play.
Meanwhile, I've set my strategic bombers to a saturation campaign in order to take out the airfields on the West Coast, while ordering one wing of four squadrons on an industry bombing campaign.
