@billcallaway:
@ghr2
Eventually Russia does lose Leningrad. However, often Russia can take Leningrad back. I’ve found that Russia is really only defending 2 Victory Cities at a time. One is always Leningrad, and the other is Moscow or Stalingrad. Russia keeps 15 infantry in the east but basically lets Japan do what they want. The implied threat of 10 infantry in the Eastern fortress is actually worse than actual threat itself. Russia now keeps the eastern artillery in the east but moves the tanks to the west 1st turn.
Russia always goes heavy into Finland. Half the casualties with Germany and Russia in our games is over Finland/Leningrad. Now that Russia has their NO in Finland it will probably draw the UK into Finland now instead of Europe, but good or bad rolls can change strategy fast. Germany has a good bonus in Norway and now that Russia does too it makes it even more important. It’s actually pretty historical too so it’s more fun. You need Leningrad to get Spain so Germany basically doesn’t have a choice. Stalingrad is too far away. Germany sends 50% north and 25% center and 25% south.
In the games I have played, usually russia ends up stacking leningrad and trying for baltic states if possible. Russia sends the novgorod slow east and uses it to pressure japan and support china (does not declare right away). The fast units get in position to take persia and attempt to hit Iraq. Russia also leaves some units in the south to deal with the minor axis armies. Germany ends up building either mass tanks to ram into baltic and pskov to kick russia out, or(more recently), gets 3-5 transports and dumps tanks n such into finland which ends up stacking vipuri and baltic/pskov. So now, germany can transport units, attack from finland/vipuri, and attack through pskov(italian bombers kill block). With the Special german east front ability to choose a battle to kick ass in, russia is forced to back out of leningrad in both scenarios. On top of all of this, russia has a large axis force in the south to deal with (20-25 inf + artmech & tank). Russia is forced to pull back in the north and south. Germany then walks into leningrad and super stacks in westukraine. He can then walk into stalingrad since russia does not have nearly enough punch to deal with the extreme amount of infantry on the defense and the many tanks. When germany can lose it’s entire airforce in an attempt to kill the western allied transport fleet, and still be strong, you know they game is screwed up.
Even if russia sent more up north, I don’t see how things could of changed much. Cairo & Calcutta both fell due to UK being unable to keep up with Japan and Italy (italy alone makes more than UK once he clears the med and get get 4-5 transports of units every 1-2 turns into africa + mass planes. FEC never made more than 23 a turn, and went down fast after turn 2 & 3.). Japan lost half of his fleet on UK round 2, but was still able to dominate india and south east asia(air scrambling from carriers to defend adjacent seazones and land territories is very strong here). The US managed to get some fleets going, but it can’t economically afford to make a critical difference in either theater unless it ignores one completely. The US and UK were able to get 20-30 ground & 6-8 UK air into france but germany was able to send enough to paris to deter the allies from reclaiming it. And now, since Italy has Cairo, he can can-open rheims which will make things a lot more difficult.
The axis had 13 vcs in their sight (Rome, Berlin, Paris, Warsaw, Leningrad, Stalingrad, Cairo, Calcutta, Singapore, Manilla, HK, Shanghai, Tokyo).
I really do think that the Axis are still too strong. It does not seem the allies could of done anything different that would of changed much. Some minor errors, sure, but nothing big. My belief is that the best shot the allies have is if they focus on killing 1 side first, before dealing with the other. Or, the US just lendleases all game and their is a change to the lend-lease rules so that the allies can at least slightly improve their odds at not losing all of it.
