[Global 1940] Operation Unthinkable

[LincolnsTopHat]

I was wondering if anyone’s ever tried creating a setup for war in 1945, or what it might look like.

[Midnight_Reaper]

I don’t know about a '45 setup, but someone did create a '44 setup for Global and posted it on BGG:
boardgamegeek.com/thread/1586488/axis-and-allies-global-1944-variant-setup
The BGG user who did so, MidnightExpress, created a bunch more variants for Global and for other A&A games, if you’re interested.

I haven’t played any of this user’s setups, so I don’t know how historic they are, but they seemed to be based more on history than on play balance - as in I’ve read complaints from people who claim to have tried them and were turned off by, say, 6 stacks of US bombers in a mid-war setup…

-Midnight_Reaper

[Narvik]

I just purchased a book, “Churchills third world war” by Jonathan Walker, and it tells how Operation Unthinkable might have worked out. Good read

[Charles de Gaulle]

For several years, my team and I have been working on a 1945 setup called “The Game to End All Games.”  It follows what would have happened if Russia remained neutral and Great Britain fell.  China and India are considered to have signed a separate peace  The main Axis power is Germany which controls most of Western Europe (Eastern Europe, Russia, and mainland Asia are out of play), Iceland, French Equatorial Africa, Gibraltar, and Nigeria and Gold Coast.  Italy Controls Egypt and East Africa and is poised to march to South Africa with a German expedition to Free French Cameroon and Vichy (a new minor power) troops supporting.  South America has United and is a new playable ally.  German navies are ready to attack the Americas anywhere.  Meanwhile, Japan is planning to attack Australia and Hawaii and Alaska.

This has been a very fun project to work on, but we were never able to balance the game, and very few of my comrades are willing to play it.  I also considered making an historical 1945, but that always required advanced tech, a time limit, or too many house rules.  1944 is the same problem.  Actually, everyone on this site might be interested to know that my team is currently focusing on a 1943 (before the fall of Tunis and Kursk).  This new setup has zero has rules aside from setup and a lot of pieces (think Oz’s 1941 scale).  Once we get it decently balanced I might submit it for testing, but perhaps I will be forced to wait until we have a good solid foundation to release.

One final project that has received nothing more than consideration is a 1946 (could also be 1945) scenario in which the Allies and Soviets waste no time in starting a Hot War.  I like this idea because it almost gets rid of the need for nukes and advanced tech for a Cold War goes hot scenario.  (And Don’t Hiroshima me.)

[CWO Marc]

@Charles:

For several years, my team and I have been working on a 1945 setup called “The Game to End All Games.”  It follows what would have happened if Russia remained neutral and Great Britain fell.  China and India are considered to have signed a separate peace   The main Axis power is Germany which controls most of Western Europe (Eastern Europe, Russia, and mainland Asia are out of play), Iceland, French Equatorial Africa, Gibraltar, and Nigeria and Gold Coast.  Italy Controls Egypt and East Africa and is poised to march to South Africa with a German expedition to Free French Cameroon and Vichy (a new minor power) troops supporting.  South America has United and is a new playable ally.  German navies are ready to attack the Americas anywhere.  Meanwhile, Japan is planning to attack Australia and Hawaii and Alaska.

For potential inspiration, you might want to have a look at interesting (but short; it’s only a page long) essay by David Fromkin in the book “What If? : The World’s Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been”.  The essay is called “Triumph of the Dictators”, and it points out that in early June 1941, just before Barbarossa, most of continental Europe and large portions of Asia were under the control of the Axis powers and of either their allies or of powers with which Germany and Japan had non-aggression pacts.  It paint a grim picture of the U.S. and of the surviving democracies as being (if I remember Fromkin’s phrase correctly) isolated in a hostile world.