Realistic WW2 Game # 5 Invite

General Nday,

If you would, please play France. Either you or the player 'LuckyX1' could have played it, he just checked in a while before you did, and has requested the U.S.A. from the get go.

The ALLIES seem to have a strong, active group of players. This should be a whale of a game... :coolman

Pardon the delay , we had to make sure the final 2 players were active & accepted their countries conditions. Thank you all for your patience. * some silly dignitary bows…

Game Set-up Info-

Main Rules:

Realistic WW2 play.

Correct Neutrals & Minors.

Limited minor new troops & research.

NO ROCKETS (potential Germany only???+)

No Nuc BBs or Subs.

GAME START INFO:

Start Time:

4PM CST (11PM GMT) AT THE LATEST… perhaps sooner if all the players check in.

Game Number:

I’ll send it when it’s up. The instant I know if all the players are ready, it’s GAME ON!

Game Name:

AXIS vs ALLIES 5

Password:

~ Sent via personal message ~

AXIS vs ALLIES #5 Game Player Update:

ALLIES:

*U.S.A. – LuckyX1 * Neutral until Dec 11, 1941.

*France – Gen.kitanga Nday * Probably Vichy.

Soviet – gabegard

U.K.- rogodeterSnowl,(including Canada)

AXIS:

Italy- SergeantRock

Germany – James Hartmund

Yugoslavia – floki2 * Activated when Germany attacks Russia.

Hungary/Slovakia – Overlord_KC (played by Sweden).

Pro-AXIS:

Spain – ? ? ? Pro-AXIS. May be activated later Spain plays only 3 units total against the USSR.

Turkey- john pete1 Pro-AXIS. Activated upon the fall of all of Egypt & Cyprus AND the AXIS doing very well in Russia.

Neutral:

Sweden – Overlord_KC *Note that the Swedish player plays 3 volunteer unitsin Finland, without officially being at war.

Interested Players:General Mussolini, elliot_98, Patfan76, JSilver.

I'm sorry for any players that tried to get in, but did not/ could not. There will be other AXIS vs ALLIES games.

As usual, we make the best effort and make sure that players are active and can play which countries they want. Other than that we try to be very fair in accepting players that want to play.

Available spot:

There is room for a Spanish player. Spain is absolutely neutral until the Fall of Egypt and IF the Germans have a clear-cut advantage over the U.K. (1 of 3 conditions). During the game they will only play a mere 3 units to fight in Russia. This might be a chance for some one to check in and see how the A vs. A games are, without being too involved. Warning, the 'true' Spain starts out very poor (gives their resources & $ to the word bank) and, like other minors is very limited in what they can produce & research.

The American Situation:

Background:

American Pre-WW2 facts:

- There was no military draft in 1939.

- Public opinion was against getting involved.

- The United States in 1939 had not yet emerged from the Great Depression. People were still suffering. It seemed absurd to embrace the burdens of yet another war.

- The U.S. were isolationists and were against oversea wars that did not serve U.S. interests.

- Most of the money and time were spent on domestic economy and fighting the Great Depression rather than raising a permanent fighting force capable of being prepared for war.

- It wasn't until Pearl Harbor that the U.S. was finally prepared for war.

- American pre-War army was smaller than that of Romania.

- Most Americans in the 1930s who remembered it (most adults remembering 116,000 deaths) looked at U.S. entry into WWI as a major mistake.

- Isolationists were elected in a wave in 1920. They would dominate Congress, as an isolationist mood would dominate the country, for the next twenty years.

- Isolationist senators like Arthur Vandenberg, Bob Taft, and William Borah were very powerful and very vocal.

- Between 1923 and 1941, the only Army forces stationed on foreign soil were the garrison of about 1,000 maintained at Tientsin, China; so in other words, no troops were abroad.

U.S. Military forces in the 1930s:

- In 1932 the 24 Regular Army regiments available in the U.S. for field service, 3/4ths of them hosting only a battalion or smaller unit. Battalions are only 300-800 soldiers. The CoW units are CORPS @ 10,000 - 40,000 soldiers.

Do NOT make more corps than the At Start Corps before the start of 1941 (on turn 6).

- August 1940, the National Guard was ordered to federal service for 12 months in anticipation of U.S, entry into World War II. More than 400,000 National Guardsmen were called up as parts of divisions or in non-divisional units, immediately doubling the size of the Army.

Historic At Start Corps:

I Corps

I Armored Corps II Corps

III Corps IV Corps

V Corps The corps spent most of World War II in charge of defenses on the West Coast of the United States, before moving to Hawaii and Leyte

VI Corps

VII Corps

VIII Corps

IX Corps

X Corps Active 1942-45. Took part in the following campaigns: New Guinea, Leyte, and Southern Philippines. XI Corps Active 1942-45. Embarked for the Pacific theater in March of 1944

Notes:

-3 of these corps are on the Pacific side. There should only be 7 infantry & 1 armored unit in the U.S.A.

-There are CoW units that are regiments & divisions within these corps, like major groups of supporting Artillery & AAA.

Air Force:

Army Air Corps, 1 March 1935:

- 3 wings (9 groups) stateside. Probably only 5 groups in East U.S.A.

- 2 wings (4 groups) overseas (Hawaii, Philippines, etc.).

U.S. Atlantic Navy: Note there are only 4 old mothballed (stuck in port) BBs.

BATTLESHIP DIVISION FIVE, Rear Admiral Hayne Ellis

NEW YORK (BB-34)

ARKANSAS (BB-33)

TEXAS (BB-35)

WYOMING (AG-17)

In CoW America is given 5 battleships at start, so ONE of them (the Queen Elizabeth) needs to be given to the U.K. and arrive where they wish turn 5. It was sent to operate with the British Home fleet.

CRUISER DIVISION SEVEN, Rear Admiral Andrew C. Pickens

WICHITA (CA-45)

QUINCY (CA-39)

SAN FRANCISCO (CA-3

TUSCALOOSA (CA-37)

VINCENNES (CA-44)

39 Destroyers. CoW Groups them into groups of (5??) DDs.

Historic Builds:

In 1942 the United States Atlantic Fleet consisted of:

7 BBs

1 fleet and 7 escort carriers

3 heavy

9 light cruisers

76 destroyers.

Early War Preparations:

FDR started preparations in 1940 including:

-Authorizing the doubling of the size of the U.S. Navy. In our game this has to be beginning of turn 4, Spring 1940.

-Trading 50 old U.S. Navy destroyers to England in return for leases on military bases on English possessions in the Caribbean. The British will give Newfoundland & Nassau as soon as CoW allows.

-Pushing the Lend-Lease Act through Congress, which authorized FDR to sell, trade, lease, or just plain give military hardware to any country he thought would use it to further the security of the United States. Turn 6.

-Ordering the Navy to attack on sight German submarines that had been preying on ships off the East Coast. Turn 7.

Lend Lease:

In December, 1940 President Roosevelt proclaimed the U.S. would be the "Arsenal of Democracy" and proposed selling munitions to Britain and Canada. Isolationists were strongly opposed, warning it would lead to American involvement in what was seen by most Americans as an essentially European conflict. In time, however, opinion shifted as increasing numbers of Americans began to see the advantage of funding the British war against Germany, while staying out of the hostilities themselves. Propaganda showing the devastation of British cities during the Blitz, as well as popular depictions of Germans as savage also rallied public opinion to the side of the Allies, especially after the Fall of France.

1941 Troop Army Expansion:

During this same period, the U.S. government began to mobilize for total war, instituting the first-ever peacetime draft.

1941 Lend-Lease to Britain: (turn 6)

The shared technology included the cavity magnetron which the American historian James Phinney Baxter III later called "the most valuable cargo ever brought to our shores" the design for the VT fuse, details of Frank Whittle's jet engineand the Frisch-Peierls memorandum describing the feasibility of an atomic bomb. Though these may be considered the most significant, many other items were also transported, including designs for rockets, superchargers, gyroscopic gun sights, submarine detection devices, self-sealing fuel tanks and plastic explosives.

Historic U.S. Naval + Builds (ready by late 1941, late Turn 7

• 15 battleships: 1 Arkansas (1912), 2 New York class (1914), 2 Nevada class (1916), 2 Pennsylvania class (1916), 3 New Mexico class (1917-1919), 2 California class (1920-1921), 3 Colorado class (1921-1923)
• Battleship BUILDS: 2 North Carolina class (1941)
• 3 aircraft carriers : 2 Lexington class (1927), 1 Ranger (1933)
• 4 Carriers under construction: 3 Yorktown class (1937-1941), 1 Wasp (1941)
• 18 heavy cruisers : 2 Pensacola class (1929-1930), 6 Northampton class (1929-1930), 2 Indianapolis class (1932-1933), 7 Astoria class (1934-1937), 1 Wichita (1939)
• 8 Baltimore class cruisers under construction
• 19 light cruisers: 10 Omaha class, 7 Brooklyn class, 2 Helena class
• 32 Cleveland class cruisers under construction
• 6 anti-aircraft cruisers (4 in service, 2 nearly ready)
• 171 destroyers (+1 88 Benson, Livermore and Fletcher class under construction 1 Allen (1917), 71 Flush-Deckers (1918-1922), 8 Farragut class (1934-1935), 12 Mahan class (1936-1937), 8 Porter class (1936-1937), 5 Somers class (1938-1939), 2 Dunlop class (193, 19 Gridley class (1938-1940), 38 Benson and Livermore class (1940-1941)
• 114 submarines (+79 Gato class under construction 8 ‘O’ class (191, 19 ‘R’ class (1918-1919), 38 ‘S’ class (1919-1924), 3 Barracuda class (1924-1925), 1 Argonaut minelayer (192, 2 Nautilus class (1930), 1 Dolphin (1932), 2 Cachalot class (1934), 10 ‘P’ class (1935-1937), 16 ‘new S’ class (1937-1939)
• Sub Builds: 12 ‘T’ class (1941-1942). Again, CoW groups subs. Note many Subs were stationed in the Pacific.

Ok and what about France. What do we do? Because, frankly, I read much about the Vichy France.

VICHY FRANCE:

When 12 (2/3rds) of these items happen/ are attained the offer for a Vichy France may be given by the Germans.

French Problems And Reasons For Vichy:

1. Fear of Collapse: French military forces were overwhelmed by German air superiority and armored mobility, and that military collapse was imminent. Players can get a feeling of this when it happens in our CoW games. You can tell it. This is when German armored units + Luftwaffe beat a medium sized army in 1 frontline territory.

2. Forces pushed back: France’s best and most modern French armies had been sent north and lost in the resulting encirclement. British, Belgian and adjacent French forces were pushed back to the sea by the highly mobile and well-organized German operation. Gamelin was removed for his failure to stop the Germans. In CoW this could be seen as the inevitable German Army connecting with an ALLIED army and available ALLIED units do not come forward to fight but retreat west or southwards.

3. Inadequacy: Churchill asked Gamelin where and when the general proposed to launch a counterattack against the flanks of the German bulge. Gamelin simply replied "inferiority of numbers, inferiority of equipment, inferiority of methods". If it happens in our games, I believe this will be obvious by the battle results. In this Battle of France chess game, this will be accomplished IF the German troop types beat out the ALLIED troops. I.e. artillery, armor, aircraft, massed assault, etc. units eliminating ALLIED units with few casualties.

4. Lacked reserves: Weygand had no reserves to counter a breakthrough or to replace frontline troops. Churchill asked General Gamelin, "Where is the strategic reserve?" that had saved Paris in the First World War. "There is none” Gamelin replied. In CoW when the French do not attack towards previous French territory (new German lines).

5. Low morale: French Government and military leaders, were deeply shocked of the sudden offensive/ debacle and was now stung by a sense of defeatism.French Prime MinisterPaul Reynaudtelephoned the new Prime Minister of the United KingdomWinston Churchilland said "We have been defeated. We are beaten; we have lost the battle. This is simply If and WHEN the U.K. player expresses this kind of concern.

6. Chaos/ Loss of Communication: Chaotic period of flight for the French government- result: end organized French military resistance. This is caused by the loss of the Paris territory.

7. Battle Losses: The Allies had lost 61 divisions in Fall Gelb. They started with 144 divisions. When the allies are down to 2/5ths their initial starting units. This would be a total out of French and British units.

8. Defeatism: Believing that his ministers no longer supported him, Prime Minister Paul Reynaudresigned. His successor, MarshalPhilippe Pétain, delivered a radio address to the French people announcing an armistice. This could be seen in CoW as the obvious inability to stop the German offense.

9. Fall Rot (Case Red), German forces outflanked the Maginot Line to attack the larger territory of France. This is IF and WHEN the AXIS units take Auxerre and Clermont.

10. Loss of weapons/armor French had lost much of their heavy weaponry and their best armored formations. For example, Rommel took 10,000 prisoners and lost only 36 men. ‘The 1st DCR was effectively destroyed on 17 May. The Germans lost 50 out of 500 tanks in the battle.’ This could be seen as the ‘BIG’ fight on a single ALLIED front line territory, where the AXIS destroy the ALLIES at a 10 to 1 ratio (AXIS army left at 90% or more after the battle).

11. Lacks air support When the French are reduced to 2 or less squadrons/groups flying over the battlefield (not sitting and/ or inactive).

12. Lacks significant U.K. support IF and WHEN the British do not assist the French in defending the main frontline territory (probably in Djon, Rheims, Lille).

12. U.K. evacuates British ‘Allied Expeditionary Force’ leaves back to Britian (or retreats to elsewhere). Seen as abandonment.

13. French leadership openly loses heart This ‘loss of heart’ would happen when the Germans take 3 of the 6 Maginot line, Rheims, Lille and Paris territories.

14. Germans swing southwards/ pass the initial defense line[with German success] disorder begins with French units and (spreads down the French lines). They were ‘panicked by the false rumour that German tanks were already behind its positions.’ Entire units fled, creating a gap in the French defences. Reference- The "Panic of Bulson." This is a historic problem, and could (will) happen when the main German army starts winning the 1^st fight against the ALLIES.

15. Speed of invasion Paris was taken just 7 weeks after the beginning of the invasion. In CoW this would be any fast thrust to Paris, Auxerre, Orleans, LeHarve (past the ALLIED defense line towards rest of France) accomplished in 2 game hours AFTER initial contact with ALLIED lines. Obviously someone will have to keep track of the time.

16. Blitzkrieg Victorious Panzers race in different directions across France. This will happen if the Germans take 2 territories, to include: Brest, Angiers, Bourges, Limoges, Nantes, Poitiers, etc.

17. French troops pinned At the Maginot Line. This is IF and WHEN the Maginot Line armies have not come out and attacked westward, within a reasonable amount of time after the initial invasion.

18. No concentrated counterattack That in theory could drive back the German invasion (that can win) “and the men had already lost heart.” Seen in CoW as the ALLIES not mounting any attacks to take back the Maginot Line territories, Rheims, Lille, Paris or Auxerre.

These all are open to interpretation; feel free to comment on or help clarify any of these conditions. They ARE what happened to cause the protectorate of Vichy France to be established.

Luckily most of the time the French player will just concede and all this in-depth thinking is not necessary. He does want to retain his country and probably can see the needless loss of life about to happen upon a lopsided German victory.

Anyone want to take spain?