Game Session #2 - October 17, 2008

National Capital WiF


Previous Sessions
Game Session #1 - October 10, 2008.

Preliminaries

Special
As Christopher is absent this session, Pablo is playing all Allies and taking notes.

Interim Victory Totals
Stephen -.5
Jon +9
Pablo -5.5
Christopher -3


Game Session #2

November/December 1939

1 January 1940
MEMORANDUM

FROM: NKVD-GUGB Directorate of Intelligence
TO: EYES ONLY - TOP SECRET - Comrade Stalin, Comrade Askwithovich

RE: Summary of Political and Military Events, November 1 - December 31, 1939

Great Stalin, Comrade Askwithovich,

Below is a summary report of the principal military and political events surrounding the general European conflict and the Sino-Japanese War.

Impulses this Game Session

Axis wins initiative and elects to go first.

Axis 1
Weather unknown (around 4-5)
It naval (conjecture), Ge/Ja unknown

Allied 3
CW naval (conjecture), USSR/Fr/Ch/USA unknown

Axis 5
Weather unknown (worse than previous)
Ja land, It combined (conjecture), Ge land (conjecture)

Allied 7
CW/USSR combined, Fr/Ch/USA unknown

End of Session
Note: Some of Allied impulse 7 is played during our subsequent game session. For simplicity it is recorded entirely in this session.

Summary

Lending

Our agents are aware of shipments, in the form of raw materials and munitions, being transferred from Germany to Italy to prop up the flagging Italian war effort. Exact quantities, however, are unknown.

It is believed that the Commonwealth has agreed to supply the French with additional oil in order to facilitate French manoeuvres.

The English (and their assorted Dominions and colonies), the French, the Yugoslavs and the Poles-in-exile are beginning to be known colloquially, as a military coalition, as the "Allies".

Reinforcements

By November 1, new forces for most powers have come online. For Yugoslavia, most importantly, the slowly-mobilizing reserves complete their mustering, just in time to prevent Zagreb from being seized whilst undefended.

German Military Activity

The late fall storms and winter's snow put a damper on German activity in November. The Army is redeploying by rail and by overland travel from Poland to the Western Front in preparation for German offensives there. In the Balkan theatre, the most significant development in this period is an air attack on the defenders of Zagreb [1 unit flipped] during 4-6 November. A follow-on assault is not in the offering due to supply concerns.

The Mediterranean Theatre

On 2 November, the Italian cruisers in Tobruk sail for Olbia after re-embarking the divisions they carried earlier. They are intercepted by French pickets outside of the port, however, on the same day, and one of the cruisers is sunk [CA sunk, div lost] while the other manages to flee the area, encountering no further enemy forces and stopping, disorganized and off-loading the weary troops, at its destination on 4 November. Other Italian ships sail from Trieste to contest control of the seas.

The Royal Navy counters, with a carrier battlegroup sailing into the central Mediterranean on 14 November. Over the next seven days, it engages the Regia Marina and Axis air power with a crushing victory for the RN carrier air arm: Italian fighter squadrons, German seaplanes [incl pilot] and an Italian cruiser are all sent to the bottom of the ocean with insignificant Gladiator losses [no CW losses].

The Italians attempt to send out more ships on 22 November to try and keep the supply lines to Sardinia open. This time, they are able to evade the Royal Navy, and in addition, on 28 November they sink a French submarine that was participating in a joint effort to search for them. A cruiser with destroyer escorts also successfully runs the British blockade to ship a German division to Olbia on 26 November.

Additionally, the Italians' mini-submarine forces, or frogmen, infiltrate the harbour at Gibraltar on 25 November and heavily damage RN troopships [TRS damaged]. The chaos from the attack leaves other troopships utterly disorganized and unavailable for redeployment elsewhere [TRS aborted].

Royal Navy carrier air squadrons are again able to engage Axis naval and air assets in a series of running battles from 30 November through 8 December, and is again spectacularly successful. The exact losses, however, are not clear during the chaos of the combat.

The Phoney War

Little conflict takes place directly between the Germans and the Allies through November, although the French do sail their cruiser forces to the Baltic. These cruisers search in vain for German merchant shipping through all of November.

Red Army Redeployment

After some consideration, a new strategic direction is decided for the Red Army. The trade agreement with Germany and the loss of key mineral resources to the Japanese leads the Great Stalin to mandate expansion into Persia to gain control of the oil there, which will allow for the long-term accumulation of substantial oil quantities while reducing the burden of resource transfers to Germany. The first step is the deployment of the air force to the region, with army troops slowly following. This takes place from 1 to 4 December.

The Sino-Japanese War

In the north, the Japanese are stalled by bad weather. They do manage to put together an offensive against the extremely weak KMT defenders of Chengchow from 21-26 November, but they stop short of occupying the city proper.

In the south, the Japanese advance north from Canton and strike into the woods southwest of Changsha with mobile infiltration and encircle tactics [Chinese call a blitz] from 23-28 November. The attack goes off spectacularly, and all the defending KMT armies are destroyed [—/2B result].

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