I am also impressed that we do get an interesting African fight. Has never happened before
A two front african fight!
-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
A two front african fight!
Chapter 5 - Events in the last weeks before Barbarossa
Europe - Africa
Starting of November, the Allies and Axis had an agreement. The Allies invaded Persia in late Octoboer (allowed by house rules), but the Axis didn’t like that as it would give the UK a certain bonus. After some discussions between de Führer and Prime Minister, with leader of the glorious workers as neutral party, they agreed on a cease fire in Persia and the Axis would give up the entire Middle East on the east side of the Suez Canal. There would also be a cease fire in that area till 15 January 1941. Below the entire agreement:
As a result the Allied units immediately started to move into the Middle East and quickly puppeted Iraq, moved to Syria and puppeted Lebanon. They then moved to the Suez Canal, where they noticed a large, probably reinforced Italian Army. The current units in the Suez Canal area won’t be sufficient for the UK and despite the strait crossing penalty the Italians will destroy the British troops if they don’t decide to reinforce the area before 15 January 1941. Also we noticed six German CAS on Cyprus and a couple of fighter planes in Alexandria. At this moment it looks like the Allies are not well prepared, while the Axis are very well prepared to strike at the moment the cease fire ends.
The other side of Africa showed some interesting events. Initially the UK players Einar and Traks invaded Morroco and could do this unopposed. However, they soon noticed the Italians bringing in a corps and not later they brought in a few extra troops again. The Allies responded to this by sending 4 extra Australian infantry divisions (exped to UK) and started slowly to push back the Italians. Important is that heavy air battles were fought over this part of Africa and Southern Spain. Actually, the air battles are still going on. How this particular front will end is unknown, but with Southern Spain still under Axis control and Gibraltar and Suez closed, the Allies can’t really move forward that much without taking the risk of getting completely destroyed by either running out of supply (logistical bombing) or just get cut off by an invasion in the back.
Another important thing to know is that there is a German Armoured Corps waiting in Venice and it could be send to the Middle East / Suez Canal. Once the Axis get a beachhead on the Allied side of it, that corps could be shipped it quickly to demolish any further Allied resistance in the area. Also it’s very well possibly they send it to the Morroco-Theatre to turn the tide and smash through the Allied lines. It would be a risky move though if you consider the fact that supplies might be tricky there. On the other hand, the Axis have large numbers of transport planes ready and could drop additional supplies. It all is a matter of how many investments someone wants to do on this front. For the Axis it’s a good thing to have Allied troops in Africa, as it means they don’t have to worry about a large invasion in Europe and can focus more on the Soviet Union.
In France the UK attacked several ports on the French coast and fired up the air war by trying to bomb Axis troops. The Luftwaffe responded strong and the RAF had to blow of the attacks after a while, also because she was needed in north Africa and the Middle East. The Axis reconquered several and let others, like Brest, untouched. Most likely because it's very easy to cut off the unit that is retaking it. A funny thing was that I noticed Germany using a paratrooper divisions for this particular job. I put an Australian and Mexican interceptor in Bordeaux and put them on air intercept over the city and surrounding area with two times as a result that the German paradrop failed and the transport plane lost strength and org. I also used the Australian tactical bombers to bomb some Axis units, with decent results. Later the bombers were targeted and send elsewhere to bomb in more safer area's
Far East
In the Far East I think things went quite smoothly this time with the USA under control of Callan and Barkas. The remaining parts of the Japanese Army in Indochina were destroyed. This are about 10 divisions, of which at least one infantry and marine division. They quickly conquered an empty Iwo Jima, meaning that they have meet the conditions (12 out of 16 important provinces in the Pacific and Indian Ocean) to send unlimited forces to Europe. Also they moved on into China and near Hong Kong several Japanese divisions got nearly destroyed, but managed to get away and are now striking back as the USA forgot to destroy them I guess. The USA is now heading for valuable provinces in the Chinese mainland. Meanwhile they also took Taiwan as a forward base. Japan, however, seems to be more mobile again and brought in some troops (marines, militia and infantry). They are now counterattacking near Shanghai with at least 8 divisions and in the south close to Hong Kong which the Allies retook, the Japanese are also counterattacking with around 8 divisions. Personally I think that if the USA doesn’t bring in additional troops, several of their divisions in China will get destroyed, including some (light) armoured brigades. As Soviet Union I hope that of course won’t be the case as it means less boots on the ground in Europe.
Also I got the better message that Japan lost another carrier and the USA didn’t lose a carrier this time. Allied spies noticed Japan started to rebuild their carrier fleet and keep expanding the growing Japanese Airforce. Where I thought two sessions ago after handing over the USA that Japan was barely alive, it seems that the current USA player still have their hands full on the Japanese player Auqia. His investment in the air force and fighting mainly from his home islands seems to be a clever strategy. At least till now.
Last edited:
Is it an AAR or a set of warnings/suggestions to the allied players?
More seriously, nice AAR out of a quite boring session.
More seriously, nice AAR out of a quite boring session.
Is it an AAR or a set of warnings/suggestions to the allied players?
More seriously, nice AAR out of a quite boring session.
I try to give an analyse of what happened and what I expect. As I can only see limited information on the Axis and don't know what your plans are, I have to use the information and eyes I have from the friendly side. If I see possible and plausible threats, I will mention them in the AAR. Not all of course (as I don't really give away intel the Axis most likely don't know themself), but I think the readers deserve to k ow what is going on. That maybe the Allies can use some of this information is true, but I told them this also in private
I still should make a final pre-Barbarossa USSR update. Can do that later as we don't have a session this Monday.
Chapter 6 - An overview of the Soviet Union (pre-Barbarossa)
As player of the Soviet Union I was acting as a kind of firebrigade in the Allied camp. First I had to solve the manpower problems on the UK, but after that was settled I switched to the minors (mostly Australia and Mexico, sometimes Canada). Later we got serious issues with the United States and I played the two most important session as the USA with I think fairly big success (reducing the Japanese Navy basically from 24 to 6 carriers in a couple months.
It all meant I spend less and less time in the screen of the Soviet Union, that’s also why there are unfortunately no updates from this country. Though, now we are at early January 1941 and the manpower problems on the Allied camp are nearly gone except for Australia and Mexico, there is time for me to put nearly all my focus on the Soviet Union again.
Before we get to the most interesting part of the game, Barbarossa, I think it’s good to look back what we actually did the last couple years. I will give a short overview about: Winter War, military leaders, technology and production.
Winter War
With the war in Western Europe raging, the eyes of the world all focused on that part of the continent. Would Britain withstand the Germans? Wouldn’t they run out of convoys by the submarine campaign? Wouldn’t their morale go down due to the never ending bombing campaign of the Lufwaffe? This was exactly what we hoped for. Nobody payed attention to the Soviet Union. We already annexed half of Poland and the Baltic States, while nobody complained about that. Finland would be our next target.
On 30 November 1939 we delivered an ultimatum to Finland to get back our core territory, the Finnish refused and we went to war. We had no intention anymore to retake the core provinces, all we wanted to do was to crush Finland with all it has. Besides, it would give us a nice bonus in terms of resources (well actually not that nice as it would mean Axis can buy additional rare materials) but more important, I would get the Gulf of Finland bonus. That was the main thing to get. I focused on getting that bonus as soon as possible and same time remove the -15% penalty I got due the purge. It would actually mean that I have about 6 leadership points extra to spend. That’s huge for the Soviet Union.
Immediately after the DoW on Finland, I moved along the coast with my tanks. As per rules I can’t level the leaders by overstacking badly, so I didn’t do that. I rather focused on removing the penalty and getting the bonus. It was also the first time to show the world our air force. The Soviet Tactical bombers, multi roles and interceptors proved to be very strong. More about the air force later.
Finland collapsed in the south fast under the pressure of the tanks we moved there. In the center and north they could withstand our not reinforced infantry better and we gained quite some land combat experience there, which would benefit mostly our doctrines. Same went for the air force, they got quite some air combat experience and it made it possible to catch up with the air doctrines.
Finland was weak, we had to delay the speed of the attack else it would have ended far too early. We got the bonus, removed the penalty and waited till late February to force the Finnish government to surrender. With Finland under control we had a strategic important position, especially if you consider the Axis have taken Sweden and with Kiruna (Tungsten) close to the Finnish border, a clash between the Red Army and Wehrmacht can be expected in Northern Scandinavia.
Military leaders
The military leaders of the Soviet Union aren’t great. Though, with Finland you can do some leveling, but per house rules overstacking against AI isn’t allowed and against humans it’s not allowed with the sole purpose of leveling leaders. We managed to get both Zhukov and Konev up to level 7 and several others went from level 3-4 to level 4-5-6. Also in the lowest category some leaders went up from 1 to 2-3. Though as the stacking rules prevent us to get a few level 8-9 leaders this is one of the best we could do. I didn’t micromanage it too badly either as I just feel it’s okay this way. Germany will have superior leaders, most likely a couple of level 8-9 loads of 6-7 and even more from level 4-5. It will be hard, but let’s hope our leaders gain experience fast so they can be at the same level of the Germans sooner or later.
The air leaders are decent, not superb. Though, they should match the Germans a bit better as our land leaders. As for the navy we only have one level 4 leader, who almost has made it to level 5 actually. Hurray for convoy raiding Finland haha.
Technology
Together with the production, technology is the most important part in the game. Especially for the USSR it’s vital to do a good spending of technology. Certain strategies ask for rushing techs, while others don’t. I choose for a heavy investment in the air force. This forces me to rush the air attack for the fighter planes: Single Engine Aircraft Armament. We neglect the Aero Engine at all and the Single Engine Airframe. The first one reduces the range of my planes and gives a bonus to air defence, the second one only provides air defence. But as we know, air defence is bugged and those techs are completely useless, unless you care about that 0.05% advantage over your enemy instead of the extra range / leadership points. We teched the Small Fuel Tank up to 1941 pre Barbarossa to get decent range and the Single Engine Aircraft Armament up to 1943. We expect to have the same Air attack as the Germans, who most likely have better range though with their 1943 Small Fuel tanks.
As for the bombers, we teched the Medium Bomb and Medium Fuel tank both till 1941. As we have several tactical bomber squads, it’s always good to have some decent range and stronger bombs. For the air doctrines things are not special. We only started to really research them after we gained large amount of air combat experience from Finland. We teched the three most important doctrines, the ones that provides extra organization, morale and a bonus to air intercept efficiency for our fighter planes. We also teched up a bit the ground attack doctrines to make it more efficient, but not too badly though as it’s expensive to spend too much on air doctrines for now. Also we teched up the morale a bit for the tactical bombers, so they get operational somewhat faster.
Even as the USSR, I teched the cheap Agriculture a bit. I’m afraid of the Luftwaffe and fear to run low on manpower if I don’t get my Great Patriotic War fast enough. Further I teched the production, education, supply techs/theory. Nothing special there.
For the infantry and militia technologies not much is going one either. I focused on the small arms (soft attack) and support weapons (defensiveness) to be operational at highest level at start of 1941, to provide maximum bonus. The Light Artillery (toughness) and anti-Tank Weapons (hard attack) was not important or should be provided by tank divisions or AT brigades.
As for the tanks, we focused on Medium Armour and Heavy Armour techwise. We didn’t put any investment in Light Armour except for getting it to 1936 to unlock the Medium Armour. It means we don’t have the ability to build SP ART brigades. We also rushed the technology called Anti-Tank Ammunition and Muzzle. If we get that to the 1944 level, we should be able to pierce the German Heavy Armour, but it requires a large investment and will take a while before it actually does. German Heavy Armour will be on the battlefields long before. Luckily our tank destroyers can pierce it. We teched up the artillery to a decent level and hope that our artillery – most likely inferior compared to the German one – can do enough damage to the soft target of the Axis.
Leadership is precious for the USSR and we didn’t research any tech – with exception the ones I need to rush – one or even worse two years ahead. That means 1938 techs get teched in 1938, not in 1937. This saves a lot on leadership and that I can use to train more officers, which is vital!
Production
As I already spoke about the technology above, you most likely know what I produced. I won’t tell exactly what my army composition is yet, but it’s a mix of a large tank force, an even bigger infantry force, that has AT and sometimes ART attached to it. We have some specialized divisions, which will get an introduction during Barbarossa, we build quite some militia brigades to reinforce the line cheap and secondary theatres.
As I focused heavily on air, I feel like I’m a bit short on the ground. The quality of my army isn’t that great, but it’s okayish. The Air Force took a great beating on it though. We are now at 7 January 1941, Germany didn’t fire Barbarossa yet. I think I will have around 1250 brigades when the clash starts.
Somewhere in 1940
As mentioned, the air force. I did heavy investment and we will see how it works out. I could go boring with only spamming tanks, infantry, anti-tank and artillery, but I wanted to do something different. It might not be the best choice, but maybe it does work out great. With over 100 planes (fighters and bombers combined) the Red Air Force should at least be able to get temporary air superiority sometimes.
So it’s all a matter of time before we know. Barbarossa will be fired within days or weeks. It can’t take long anymore, as pressure increases slowly on the Axis War Economy. Though, they are not in a desperate need of rares anytime soon yet. Who knows if they can take Moscow before (not that my stockpile is huge Rastrigin!)
Well I think I owe you and update on the axis economy (still a bit early to cover the production)
The axis was going to run out of rares in Oct-Nov 1940, due to the excessive IC spamming of Germany and the obstructing trading policy the allies kept during pre-war peacetime (without violating any rules). During the whole 1940 mesures were taken to improve our situation. The greatest success was closing the Med, that gave us an extra rares income of over 30 rares a day (mostly thanks to Sardinia and Sicily). A risky (and convoy expensive) rare deal with Japan gave us 50 more rares for some months until Japan lost their South East asian possessions (now they are at risk of starving theselves). Other "cheap" measures we adopted for Germany and Italy was researching the rare techs for anoher smaller boost and moving the military police occupation divisions to rare producing territories instead of IC rich territories. Sadly, we were also forced to take more painfull measures to secure our situation, those involved:
-Switching the IC bonus ministers with the resource bonus ones in Germany and Italy.
-Starving the axis minors: their production is not nearly as efficient as the German and Italian ones, it's better to save the rares for those 2 nations. Their remaining IC was in part LendLeased to Germany. Also Italy is starting to run low on manpower so is now Lend-Leasing some of their IC.
-Trading IC for leadeship in the occupied countries. Those countries with none or very little rare production (namely Neederlands, Belgium, Sweden and later Portugal) were set to collaboration governement in order to get a LS boost instead of the extra IC and materials we'd get with total exploitation.
Not all of those measures were adopted at the same time, the most painfull were adopted only recently. The result of those policies was to increase our rares self sufficiency of at least one year (depending on when the allies will invade, if we switch occupation policies in France and Spain we'll last longer due to the reduced IC). On the downside Geramany went from a potential IC output of about 730 total IC (with everything maxed) to about 600, the minors suffered even more and Italy also lost some IC points.
The axis was going to run out of rares in Oct-Nov 1940, due to the excessive IC spamming of Germany and the obstructing trading policy the allies kept during pre-war peacetime (without violating any rules). During the whole 1940 mesures were taken to improve our situation. The greatest success was closing the Med, that gave us an extra rares income of over 30 rares a day (mostly thanks to Sardinia and Sicily). A risky (and convoy expensive) rare deal with Japan gave us 50 more rares for some months until Japan lost their South East asian possessions (now they are at risk of starving theselves). Other "cheap" measures we adopted for Germany and Italy was researching the rare techs for anoher smaller boost and moving the military police occupation divisions to rare producing territories instead of IC rich territories. Sadly, we were also forced to take more painfull measures to secure our situation, those involved:
-Switching the IC bonus ministers with the resource bonus ones in Germany and Italy.
-Starving the axis minors: their production is not nearly as efficient as the German and Italian ones, it's better to save the rares for those 2 nations. Their remaining IC was in part LendLeased to Germany. Also Italy is starting to run low on manpower so is now Lend-Leasing some of their IC.
-Trading IC for leadeship in the occupied countries. Those countries with none or very little rare production (namely Neederlands, Belgium, Sweden and later Portugal) were set to collaboration governement in order to get a LS boost instead of the extra IC and materials we'd get with total exploitation.
Not all of those measures were adopted at the same time, the most painfull were adopted only recently. The result of those policies was to increase our rares self sufficiency of at least one year (depending on when the allies will invade, if we switch occupation policies in France and Spain we'll last longer due to the reduced IC). On the downside Geramany went from a potential IC output of about 730 total IC (with everything maxed) to about 600, the minors suffered even more and Italy also lost some IC points.
I noticed that you got large income of rares a couple sessions ago and was sure it was Japanese stuff. I asked the Allies to start raiding your convoys and in the end that was 'succesful', though it was worth a few convoys to throw away in return for those thousands of rares. Also closing the Mediterranean Sea was important for you guys yes. Palermo and Cagliari should give about 25 rares and North Africa should give you another 5-7 yes.
The Allies initially planned to hold or take back quickly the rare provinces I think. Good for you - and probably for the game - they didn't. You have about 1 year left now if I'm right, but Moscow is too close to the border
P.S. The production doesn't have many secrets for me
Great AAR feye! what mods are you guys using exactly? Someone asked a few pages back but you didn't mention exactly which. Also what was your fleet composition for dealing with Japans aircraft carriers? I'm a fairly new player and I am not sure what the best setups are.
We use a multiplayer mod I made and mowt groups do use it nowadays. It can be found in the first post (of this and our main thread).
As for Japan, he used 6 CV 14 CL fleets, which did win 1 on 1 vs our 5 CV 15 DD fleets. However we used them en masse weil he used those often alone or with two fleets. To hunt his weaker CTF down I had to find out what were his slower CTF'S. Slower I mean which one have the lowest average spees. That are tbe ones he used the starting CL with. I figured this out by bombing those fleets and checking the names of the CL. If I saw it was a slow CTF I smashed in a 3 BB 15 DD (new fast DD) fleet wkth air cover above it and that fleet started to close in quickly. After doing that two times we got an 2:1 advantage in numbers of Carriers and the BB DD fleet would have ahard time to catch any others as the modern fleets of Japan were the only targets left. But due to sheer numbers I could hunt his two CTF's down.
Now I don't know anymore what fleets are fighting exactly in the Pacific as I'm not playing USA anymore (I just subbed it two times).
- 1
It's on hold. we are having difficulties but we try to keep going. We'll try to play next week.
I find it surprising people can play a multiplayer game for this many months.
When I leave HOI3 for a couple of weeks I forget what my plan was before
.I'd be completely new to multiplayer and don't even have Feye's mod but if you're desperate for a minor or even a major stand in I'd be happy to help.
Taste multiplayer HOI3 for the first time.
It hasn't been dead the whole time, we did play on and there was a lot of action, axis landed in the middle esat and killed 3 allied corps (lost 4 para divisions though), then retreated. Barbarossa started and there is currently heavy fighting on the eastern front as well as an allied landing in Norway.
If you want to play with us you can add feye (and me if you want) on steam, contact him before the game. You can also contact me if he doesn't reply. You find all the info you need in the game thread in the multiplayer section. post your interest there as well!
If you want to play with us you can add feye (and me if you want) on steam, contact him before the game. You can also contact me if he doesn't reply. You find all the info you need in the game thread in the multiplayer section. post your interest there as well!
- 1