AAE Scenario: Europe 1939 (France, USA, Germany, Britain, USSR, Italy)

I wounder if there is anyway of influinceing spain to come over to the axis, just like the allied and axis versions of Italy.

Mabye somehow split the teritorie of spain into portugal, madrid, and northern spain?
On that, how would you influence a country, give up a certain amount of IC or something?

Maybe it could be like tech. Pay 5 IPC and roll a die to see if Spain joins.

Gotta go be back in a couple hours.

@Admiral_Thrawn:

Eschaton we have an interesting game going on from your scenerio in “Games in Progress” forum under Admiral_Thrawn(Allies) Vs. Gewher and Cyan(Axis) if you want to check it out. This is probably playing out a little differently than usual. France surviving into the 7th round and counting.

yeah i’ve been posting the world news in hear too so people could follow.

@Admiral_Thrawn:

We have a problem with rules and I want to hear what other people think. I’ll set it up. Me as the Soviet Union has a sub in the South Atlantic and and Transport in the Azores sea. The British have a Destroyer,sub,and transport in the Central Atlantic. It is Italy’s turn and he has 1Destroyer,1sub,and 4transports in the strait of Gibraltar. The SU and the Axis are not at war. In this scenerios rules it says and I quote:“The Soviet Union must remain at peace until Germany or Italy initiates hostilities against the Soviet Union. Then it must declare war against both of these countries and no others.” Thats all it says about how the SU becomes at war with the Axis. Can the Itialians move there fleet through the Russian fleet to get to the british without declaring war on the SU? I say no. When in A&A is it not “initiating hostilites” to put your war ships into the same sea zone as the opponent?

This how I responded to the German players claim that the Italians could move through the Russians to get to the British.

I can kinda of see where you are coming from but putting naval units in the same sea zone as mine seems to be starting hostilites. Let me put it this way. I as the Soviet Union would consider it an act of war if you bring your naval vessels anywhere near mine. I.E. in the same sea zone.

So what does everyone else think? Do you think I am right or wrong?

With all do respect, Admiral, I would have to say you are wrong. You are not in the war at present and therefore are a neutral nation.  Under the International Law of the time, a warship of a belligerent nation could enter neutral waters or a visit a neutral port for a period of 24 hours without being subject to internment or seizure.  Neither the entering of national waters or a port was viewed as an act of war.  A historical case in point was that the Russians received Lend-Lease supplies carreid by Russian ships to the port of Vladivostok throughout the war, unhindered by the Japanese who territorial waters they were crossing, and obviously they were sailing in combat zones.  The US Coast Guard cutter Modoc was for a while tailing the Bismarck in the Greenland Sea area, without the Germans considering it an act of war.  Unless the Italian player attacks you, he can freely move his ships through the sea zones occupied by your vessels, just as you could freely move ships through sea zones occupied by his vessels.  The British allowed Italian merchant ships and naval vessels to pass through the Suez  Canal up to the time of Italy declaring war.

As for Gewehr trying to get Spain involved, one factor in Spain’s staying out of the war, at least to an extent, was the fact that the US guaranteed grain shipments of 700,000 tons a year to Spain if it stayed neutral.  As Spain was recovering from the destruction of the Spanish Civil War, it was really in no shape to fight, and the grain helped Franco feed the populace.  Food is a very good bribe.  I say to an extent, as a Spanish division served on the Russian front fighting the Russians, althought there is good reason to believe that Franco staffed the division with anyone he regarded as a potential toublemaker within the Falangist Party, and devoutly hoped that they would not come back.  Most of them did not.  The Italians also operated an underwater sabotage force from an Italian freighter in Algeciras, attacking merchant ships in Gibralter harbor with limpet mines attached to their hulls.  It seems reasonable to assume that the Spanish were not entirely in the dark about the activities.  In some respect it worked to the benefit of both sides that Spain stay neutral.  I would argue for game purposes that Spain not be in the game, as it took quite a while to recover from the Spanish Civil War.

right now its the summer of 42. so the same as AAR. but the germans have complete naval contole, italy is fairly large and Us has alot of planes. Uk is on the brink of callospe an SU is still at peace.( more like trying ot everything possible so they get invaded) and each side owns half the middle east.

I used the rules that you started your from once.  I felt the UK was too powerful.

Im playing a rules set right now based partially off of these rules, and off of another set I found that eliminates IPCs and instead has resource chips that generate in one area and must be moved to a factory to be converted to units.  I playtested my original ideas (with europe and japan) and now Im working out the kinks and converting things over to the resource system.  Im also developing a new diplomacy system to improve on my older one.

Somebody help me out:

Why would Spain join the axis?
Why would Turkey join the axis?
If Saudi Arabia were to get involved, who would they fight for and why?
What made Bulgaria join the axis?
……Rumania?
…Hungary?

The final thing Im working out kinks in is build-up for pre-entry.  I need to find a good rate that italy / russia / US build up at before they start fightng.  Im considering going extreme and having there be a build-up for india and australia too, but Im not sure what units they would start with and such. Any suggestions?

I shouldve probably made this another topic instead of posting here, hahaha.

@Eschaton:

France can indeed be POWERFUL if the British and the French are ready to commit to its defense. This is especially true if the Germans don’t do all that they can to crush France on the first turn if it looks like the Allies are going this route. I don’t find this particularly ahistorical, as the British and French, if they had had the will, COULD have had larger and better-trained armies ready. The bocage would have become as devastating for the Germans as it was for the Americans in 1944.

The French army in 1940 was both bigger and better equipped than the German.  The Char B1 tank was superior to the German panzers, and with Belgian and UK forces the Germans were significantly outnumbered.

Superior tactics and motivation accounts for the German victory, something which makes it very difficult to reproduce the war before 1941 in Axis and Allies terms. Usually this leads to designers handicapping France artificially to the extent that it cannot survive whatever it does, pretty much destroying the whole point of starting in 1939. We cannot create a game starting in '39 or '40 which both gives many alternative playouts while retaining something recognisable as World War II, unless it means railroading events to the extent of the contrived rules clauses you find in games such as World at War.
Do you allow the German’s to use “Blitzkreig” tactics but not the French, simply because the French hadn’t though of using them?

From the game that I’m playing now with this scenario, Belgium and East france are taken within the first few turns, but france it’s self is a formadable force and is harder to take than it might seem.

@Flashman:

Superior tactics and motivation accounts for the German victory, something which makes it very difficult to reproduce the war before 1941 in Axis and Allies terms. Usually this leads to designers handicapping France artificially to the extent that it cannot survive whatever it does, pretty much destroying the whole point of starting in 1939.

Yeah its so hard.
And if you can’t kill France quick the game is sort of stuffed for Germany.

Could work for
*more chopped up map, tactical level gameplay so you could model the situation and motivation
*adjust it to the time France and UK was already on the run, so it more about saving their forces so UK don’t get invaded immediately

We cannot create a game starting in '39 or '40 which both gives many alternative playouts while retaining something recognisable as World War II, unless it means railroading events to the extent of the contrived rules clauses you find in games such as World at War.

Finally got around to reading World at War the other day.
I felt it was a bunch of strict or inflexibile or artificial diplomacy.
I hope this scenario doesn’t have to get down to that.

A clever design of victory conditions allowing SU to win the game without playing against Germany might the way.

France would of histrionically fallen on turn 3 or 4 if you are playing by the septermer 39 statrt dated/

Well the way I did it was take belgium the first turn, then attkae from there to E France the 2nd…but in my version, france retreated from the magnot line and vichy to paris, making it hard to take and hold it on the next turn.

@Gewehr:

Well the way I did it was take belgium the first turn, then attkae from there to E France the 2nd…but in my version, france retreated from the magnot line and vichy to paris, making it hard to take and hold it on the next turn.

they consolidated their forces which i pretty sure the french did not do int the real war.

The way im doing it, with supply chips and no IPCs, the only supply chip for france is in vichy france, so If they plan to build any units they will definitely want to defend eastern france, and if italy has built up a bit then they might fall back to vichy.  Either way, its not good to give up their only way to defend themselves.

It seems to me that a “combined arms” rule would work well here. It all depends where Germany strikes first, East or West.
C.I.

What about the idea of turn limit until the SU can attack the Axis? Are you telling me if the Soviet Union would have never attacked the Axis first? I find that unlikely considering the track record of SU. I think if they thought they had a clear advantage to defeat Germany at some point they would.