Summer 2022 Battle of Britain - 26th June - See Battle Report

@barnee Yes he did fortunately.

With continuing Covid 19 restrictions some of us decided to play via Zoom using triple a. Of course this was not as much fun as playing face to face, but the four of us who joined in very much enjoyed the day.

Mark (@Credulous) kindly hosted the Zoom session.

We decided to play Anniversary (1942 set up). Mark played Japan and Adam (@Private-Panic) Germany / Italy. Leo (@Wittmann) took USA & Russia and Andrew (@h0lym0nk) GB. The Allies had a bid of 12 which they placed as a GB destroyer off Canada and a R artillery.

The opening moves on the R front favoured R, as G counter attacks all suffered more casualties than they inflicted. GB attempted its Taranto moment and lost heavily, leaving Italy able to capture Egypt. Japan suffered no mishaps, killing the GB fleet of India, the US flotilla at Pearl Harbour and the Chinese fighter.

GB considered its choice of factory locations and decided to opt for South Africa. Fortunately Hirohito spotted the possibility of capturing this and under Japanese orders the Italian navy navigated the Suez Canal and dropped 2 ground units in south east Africa, and these were able to capture the factory the following turn.

The US landed in north Africa, but then lost its 2 transports, defended by a single destroyer, to a G Luftwaffe attack. The US decided to allocate a considerable proportion of its resources towards an Atlantic navy sufficient to allow further landings in north Africa. These pushed towards Egypt.

This allowed J some freedom in the Pacific. J captured India and built a factory there. Briefly this appeared threatened by US pressure on Egypt and a R threat south from the Caucasus, but the prudent deployment of J fighters to India and Egypt stymied any Allied ambitions. Later Australia also had the honour of joining the J empire!

Meanwhile G managed to keep R in check while also combining with I units to deny the Allies the opportunity of gaining the French national objective. As a result the Axis were gaining most of their national objectives, but the Allies few of theirs. This and the collapse of the British Empire gave the Axis an income advantage of around 30 ipcs per turn.

The Allies surrendered, with a G stack before the walls of Moscow and a growing J threat on Caucasus. The US Pacific fleet had captured a couple of islands (while J replaced the naval fighters it had sent to India) but had no opportunity to effect further advances. The US Atlantic fleet had sailed south to defend Brazil from Italy’s South African fleet, robbing north Africa of reinforcements. Perhaps the only bright point for the Allies was GB’s capture of Norway.

The four of us had a chat and decided that the autumn and winter BoB dates should be arranged with the intention of falling back on a virtual event should Coronavirus continue to preclude face to face play.

@aftertaste Thanks for those additions Mike. Much appreciated.:+1:

Congratulations to Argothair for winning the Bay Area A&A Anniversary tournament! 
Argothair:  Gold
Karl7:  Silver
Corpo24:  Bronze

Thank you all for attending and hope to do this again in the future with more players.  👍

There will be an Axis & Allies tournament hosted by The Columbus Area Boardgaming Society (CABS) at 11 am on May 14th in Worthington, Ohio. Featured will be a 1942 tourney & also a Global tourney. Go to the Columbus, Ohio Axis & Allies Meetup site for more details. Prizes for winners.

Credulous has provided the following battle report on the other game:

The 1942 game was contested between Credulous and two non-forum players from the village. The Axis very quickly established themselves as firm favourites for the win wiping out a significant Russian stack in Karelia, and the Siberian army massing on the Japanese border. The Allies never really recovered from these early losses, which were compounded with the early loss of Egypt and India. In a desperate bid to counter the American’s launched an audacious bid to capture Toyko via amphibious landings, but this desperate gambit was quashed and in the following turn a four carrier Japanese battlegroup sailed into home waters to sink the American battleships and cruisers and leave the US Pacific fleet in tatters. Finally the British launched a desperate attack of their own on Berlin having established a temporary beach head in Holland Belgium, but this attack was also quashed leaving nothing to prevent the triumphant Axis armies marching into Berlin. At the close of the game the Axis empire stretched from Normandy to Eastern Siberia, encompassing everything in between and the entirety of Africa, along with Australia. The contest was over by 3.40pm allowing an early get away for all concerned to soak up the sunshine and fine weather!

Glad you enjoyed it Credulous.

My West Russia miscount was a disaster for G and absolutely the biggest error of all errors in our game. Just amazed that after that the axis both gained a second opportunity (that failed) to take Moscow and even so successfully kept R bottled up for sufficiently long for a replacement G European stack/threat to be in place.

After the West Russia disaster I thought I had lost. Either that perception of impending doom was wrong (as I know you believe) or the axis military commanders played a blinder to claw back a draw, with their own “hopes” of final victory. I quite like the second interpretation! :-)

After the West Russia catastrophe I couldn’t afford too many more mistakes and think I pretty much managed to avoid them.

What would have happened if I had not bogged up in W Russia? I probably would have discovered another game changing error to make instead!

Looking forward to our next game. We’ll see how I manage to bog that one up! :roll:

I may be interested in 1914. How many players do you have put together?