not in 183 games, the fall of moscow means the writing is on the wall. germanys bonuses need to be reduced from 5 to 3 (except norway) imo to prevent an unstoppable income flop, and bm air interception rules can prevent the easy suffocation of russia. these two changes make the game a bit more fair
Russia
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Switzerland always wins because it’s banks always finance both side’s war economy.
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yeah they do that a lot
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More lulz…
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Britain and France were also planning to send large contingents to Finland to fight the Soviets.
Interesting to speculate what might have happened if this had been ongoing when Barbarossa commenced.
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Britain and France were also planning to send large contingents to Finland to fight the Soviets.
Interesting to speculate what might have happened if this had been ongoing when Barbarossa commenced.
that would lead to a three sided war
Allies: France, Britian and maybe the U.S.
The soviets
The Axis -
i think the soveits would lose then the axis :-)
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Yeah, without the mountains of material the Allies were sending the russians the would not have been able to fight, and for sure they would not have been able to support any large scale offensives of their own.
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Britain and France were also planning to send large contingents to Finland to fight the Soviets.
Interesting to speculate what might have happened if this had been ongoing when Barbarossa commenced.
Actually, it’s quite interesting - the French (in particular) were very anti-soviet. The main reason for ‘assisting Finland’ however was to get hold of the Swedish iron ore mines that were supplying the Germans. Both Norway and Sweden were aware of this and were anti any allied forces coming through their territory to ‘assist Finland’.
This led to the French proposing a Royal Navy led assault on the Caucasus (to distract Russia) via the Black Sea!!! Which was clearly barmy. The UK had no intention of doing this. At all.
However - the entire debacle of Norway’s invasion was down to that iron ore, as well as the fact that while the British and French were still debating things the Germans simply landed in Norway to ‘guarantee her neutrality’ (and the ore). Just like the benelux countries - the scandys were so obsessed with preserving their neutrality in the face of the blundering ‘great powers’ that as Churchill (while 1st Lord of the Admiralty) commented ‘It is simply TOO LATE to emphasise neutrality neutrality neutrality and then cry for help once the Germans have invaded.’
I suspect that the germans (in the eventuality of war between the allies) would have sat out… watched, prepared, built up and then conquered the weary victors of such a war. After all - the germans were not bargaining on their lightning victory in France - it surprised everybody. In winter 1940, faced with the ‘greatest army in the world’ (as the French army was widely toted to be) I reckon the Germans would have relished the distraction/destruction of their enemies through such in fighting. Added to this - Hitler felt that he was taking a massive gamble - not having wanted a european war until 1943 when he imagined Germany would be ready for such an undertaking…
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As to gameplay. Well we face the same problem on both fronts. In terms of materiel the French AND the Russians were no way easy prey to the Germans.
In France it was ‘old veteran thinking’ that was the problem. Gamelin was happy to sit in his chateau well aware that orders dispatched would take 24-48 hours to get to the front. When facing a armour/air heavy series of attacking spearheads (Schwerpunkts) capable of moving at mechanised speed and with instant radio communications operating between ground units, air units and a central command this was simply like a slug fighting a scorpion (my metaphor - can you tell?). At this atage - the French didn’t even understand what ‘calling in an airstrike’ meant. Unfortunately for them - the Germans had all this down pat.
You’d have thought that the Russians would be better prepared. What they saw of the rapid destruction of the French grand armie worried them greatly. But unlike French WWI thinking - the Russian army had been purged of virtually anyone who even remembered WWI!
But then this is all the history. The fact is that in A&A armies are represented by plastic tokens with predetermined attack/defense strengths. This leaves no room for the fact that in both France and Russia the failures were in human judgement - not the tools for the job. This is of course dealt with in the old A&A Pacific with Japan’s first move advantage (all units save the chinese defend at a 1 for the Japanese attack on J1).
It reminds me of when I used to ponder the loss of Japan’s skilled airforce at the Coral Sea, Midway and Guadalcanal. The factors that led to the deaths of hundred of green Japanese pilots over the Marianas (because the Japanese had neglected to develop rigorous training facilities to replace the pilots they lost.) I thought about having pink japanese fighters. Everytime a new Japanese plane was bought it would be a pink one which attacked at 2 and defended at 2. Hence over the course of the game the Japanese airforce would ‘de-skill’. Of course this would take an entertaining game and make it ever more complicated…
Just like the situation we find in this Europe game. The best way of dealing with this issue is to handicap the allies (Like in AAP41). Doing this with France is easy. With Russia is more difficult. After all if the Russian player knows his pieces will be at a disadvantage - he’ll picket his front with 1 inf in each territory. Then he doesn’t have to worry about all those tanks, fighters and expensive units being lost for nought.
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Maybe the Russians HAVE to leave all those units on the front line, in line with their historical thinking which was to attack and fight the war on enemy soil. Difficult…
Perhaps this is why LH decided there could be no 1939 scenario; the Germans and Soviets would end up in a stand-off in Poland with each effectively paralysed from moving anywhere else.
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I like the inexpierenced jap plane idea.
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I like that idea too. I am currently working on an advanced Europe game myself, 1941 style. And so I am working on initial placements for the Soviet armies at the moment, based on data taken from my Hearts Of Iron II game. But will it work for A&A? Yes, the Soviets were unprepared, but they still had so many troops… it’s giving me headaches at the moment! :lol:
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Stalin wouldn’t consider attacking Germany - he’d signed a treaty, hadn’t he?
Until Germany attacks, Russia is on a peace footing, i.e. is has a spending limit and maximum establishment. Of course it can attack small countries assigned to it under the Pact…
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@Brain:
If Russia is eliminated early, then Germany would have only one front to contend with.
Ehhhh… If Germany starts the game with one foot in France it’d kinda be folly to go after Russia at game start, especially if they’re at peace.
I’m guessing whatever Germany builds in the first three turns is what she’ll have available for Russia when war is imminent.
But, yeah, IF Germany had been able to somehow get around Poland and the French and English guarantees of war dec with the Polish invasion in 1939, THEN she would have had full confidence of the West in invading and conquering Soviet Russia. I think if Germany had gone after "Anchluss"ing German citizens and German land in Poland FIRST instead of Czechoslovakia she might have gotten away with it under appeasement with Chamberlain. BAM. Legal (well almost legal) road to invasion of Russia without promises of Allied war declaration intact.
Of course, Germany would have been short of several tanks and munitions factories she annexed from Czechoslovakia, but at least the road would have been open.
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Don’t get all historical on me Mr. Blitz, I am strictly talking game strategy here.
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We should make a thread that only includes history discussions so we don’t have them going on everywhere
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We should make a thread that only includes history discussions so we don’t have them going on everywhere
We do, it’s in other forums called, imagine this, World War II History:
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Well then it should be used correctly then!
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