That all sounds blood awesome!  You clearly spent a lot of time working out the details and they sound really cool.

At the end of your post you were mentioning that British ships can get higher anti-aircraft tech than Soviet or Axis ships.  Does each nation have specific tech limits for all technologies available?  And are there land-based anti-aircraft technologies? If so, how does Germany stack up?  You mentioned in previous posts about the “big deal” that aircraft represent in the game, so having or not having technology related to shooting stuff down seems important.

How do aircraft carriers work?  Do they come with their own assigned aircraft, or can you field upgraded naval air units?  Or would that merely upgrade the aircraft carrier itself?  So many games, the aircraft carrier, and all ships in general, are just simple units with simple stats.  Are there light carriers, escort carriers and fleet carriers with varying stats for each country?  Can any country build them?  Could Germany for instance, field a massive carrier fleet?

You said China produces no EU’s for the first 5 turns.  Does this mean China only has what it starts the game with for five turns?  Or does it still have PU’s to build units with?  Also, do you have to spend everything every round or can you accumulate EU’s or PU’s and spend them when you want to?

I guess my next big question would be about Industrialization and when countries get it and how they get it?

I like that destroyers get anti-sub bonuses and not so much battleships.  This actually reflects how often we saw big cruisers and early aircraft carriers being taken out by subs like the Hood and hits on USS Saratoga and Ark Royal.  Dedicated anti-sub warfare units like destroyers makes sense and they did not mount the larger guns, thereby they wouldn’t perform well in actual naval combat.

Also, how do you do naval combat itself?  Can you do air strikes against non-carrier forces like battleships and battle cruisers with impunity from a distance?  How well do these ships defend against air attacks if they have no aircraft of their own to put in the skies over a naval confrontation?  Also, can shore based air units be brought into naval battles?  I guess I am kind of asking about the map itself.  In Axis and Allies, ocean spaces are huge in some areas, whereas some games simply uses hexagons to represent distance.  How do you work distance into unit movement?  Can a strategic bomber fly from Berlin to Los Angeles or can West Coast-based land aircraft be used in a naval battle in the Coral Sea?  And, what about Kamikaze attacks?  Can air units fly their max distance and not return?

And lastly, for this post, what are the special advantages of each nation?  I am curious what you gave China.

@ABWorsham:

@MrMalachiCrunch:

I read somewhere (linked to from here I believe) that even if the entire Pacific fleet had been wiped out by mid 1942 it would have set the US back about 6-12 months only.

Had the entire U.S fleet been destroyed the U.S would have taken the offensive in late 43-44.

I agree.  The US was supposedly able to pump out carriers at the rate of one every six months.  I have heard three months. (This might have been light carriers though rather than fleet carriers.) However they would have needed five or six to feel comfortable sailing off to meet the Japanese fleet.  Also, when you have lost catastrophically, you tend to want to over-compensate before trying again, so the US might have wanted seven or eight carriers.  And if the Japanese had won, with no losses, you’d think they would have considered trying to bottle the US up against the West Coast rather than just sail away and hope the US simply gives up and leaves them alone.  If they had at least tried to hit Panama and damage the canal and struck shipyards on the West Coast, I could see late 1943 or even 1944 being the start of a new, major offensive.

And, the Japanese might have built a couple of more for themselves too.  Of course Japan might have been stupid and built a bunch of Yamato’s instead.  Hitler didn’t start building Me-262’s when he first had the chance.  Nobody went all out when Sikorski showed off his helicopter.  So it is no guarantee that just because you win, you suddenly gain great wisdom and make all the right choices in the future.  But if the subject is “What if?” and you want to give a side the best possible chance, then Japan wins, bottles up the West Coast production, starts sending I-400’s to hit Panama, puts more subs in the Pacific and concentrates on bulking up its carrier fleet.  I still think the best they could hope for was buying time.  I really don’t see the US giving in and agreeing to terms.  But Japan could hope.  Maybe… if the US built a new fleet and lost that too.

I like pretty much everything I am reading here.  You seem to have come up with a balance to represent morale and production and combat.

Though I’d love the version where France is in the war at the start, it would be hard to create a situation, in game, where they suddenly just up and surrender.  From what I have read, France not only had more tanks than Germany, they had some better tanks too.  Maybe the doctrine of expecting Germany to bleed itself out knocking on the Maginot door set them up to be too surprised and unprepared when Germany went around it… but I can imagine in a game setting, a player would just push everything up North to meet Germany where they came in, rather than just surrender.  But in games, players are far more willing to sacrifice units to gain a slight advantage, whereas in reality, those were people who would be dying.  We will never know how it would have turned out had France fought on.  But it would be a fun simulation.  Capturing it in a game would be mighty hard.  Or hard in the sense that history would not play out the same way.  Germany might have still won in France and gained its surrender, but then what about the Battle of Britain and the loss of so many German aircraft and crews, and then what of Operation Barbarosa?  Sometimes when you are losing unexpectedly, you start looking for different allies.  What if Hitler, who was playing nice with Stalin at the time, got him on board?  Or if the Soviets stayed out all together?

How many players is the game set up for max?  This sounds a bit like Axis and Allies with five players.  How do you envision Germany standing a chance, with Japan, if the USA has 200 production with a potential 300?  What is the maximum Germany or Japan can obtain?  And is there any realistic way in the war for either to get into a position to hit the US and set it back?  Strike at its production with strategic bombers or is the US pretty much impervious?  Because it sounds like Germany and Japan, even with Russia and the UK knocked out, would still have a real fight against just the USA all by itself.

Also, you suggested some tech could take 13 or 14 turns.  If I understand correctly, this is 6.5 to 7 years of game time?  So we would be talking 1942 + 6.5 years = 1948/1949 for some techs to be obtained by some countries?

And how does combat actually work?  Does it come down to amazing dice rolls with my attack strength matching up on a chart against your defense strength and we just roll for losses?  I always hated games of Axis and Allies where I would hit with 12 tanks and 20 INF, the defender would have 15 INF and get 15 hits to my 3 or 4.  Drove me nuts!  You could waste hours of fun on a single lucky roll.  I know luck plays into a lot of warfare, but planning, good defensive positions, and equipment and training should be the primary factors.  Or at least all should be equally weighted, if you know what I mean?  Especially in a game.  But it is also sweet to knock out two battleships and lose no aircraft.  And just as painful to see an opponent roll a bunch of ones on an AA roll.

In the main version of the rules set, countries like Romania, Finland, and Italy are lumped in with Germany. As such, they are treated like any other German territory, and contribute MPs, PUs, and EUs to Germany’s coffers. In an optional variant, I have them broken out as separate nations. Italy is stuck with light infantry and light tanks, and what is probably the most disappointing technology situation of the game. (With the possible exception of China.) Romania’s available technology is fairly standard-issue and vanilla. It uses medium tanks and regular infantry, and can research upgrades. Finland’s technology situation is similar to Romania’s, except that Finland’s infantry are better than game-normal. Medium tanks are good units, but not as good as the battle tanks or heavy tanks Germany will upgrade to as the game progresses. Later in the game, Finland, Romania, and Italy can slowly start receiving jet technology from Germany. Germany may also want to research better medium tank technology–not for its own use, but so that it can transfer it to its minor allies.

I like the idea of being able to transfer technology to your allies so their units can be improved.  You might add some kind of “morale bonus” to help adjust their capabilities since many countries, Italy included, were just not as enthusiastic about war as Germany and Japan and the UK were.  So even if they had jets, maybe they perform a little less capably than those operated by Germany.  That would you could upgrade them directly, yet not gain quite the full 100% value.  This would possibly reflect poorer training, while having just one overarching rule to cover it all, rather than some complex list of rules to explain it.  This bonus would also explain how Japan and Germany were fighting all the way till their destruction and where Britain was fighting even stronger during the Battle of Britain where say, France, surrendered.  And for Russia, back in WWI, they simply walked away from the war, while it was still going, their hearts not really in it, yet in WWII, they probably would have kept going even if Moscow had fallen, similar to how you were saying that capitals play a role, but that conquering a country doesn’t come simply with their capture.

Also, Italy had a lot of the same technology as Germany.  They made some fairly advanced aircraft designs during the war, their navy was every bit as advanced as anyone else, yet half the war their navy sat in port.  Then the moment the Allies showed up on their porch and Musolini was ousted, suddenly their were on the Allied side.  So I can see morale playing a good role in your game.

Also, on the topic of morale, does France automatically surrender in your version, or do they have the capability of fighting?  From what I have read, France could have fought on.  They had the forces, the tanks, the aircraft.  How does your game play out differently than history?  In many WWII games, units are provided to reflect history, yet also to allow for game play, so either side can win.  Yet if you allowed for pre-war buildup, Japan could have built carriers instead of battleships, Germany could have built something differently.  Knowing how history played out kind of lets people alter events.  When I play Axis and Allies, sometimes I like to give Germany a couple of extra bombers just to knock out transport production in the United States, I wipe out the UK fleet and then see how long it takes the Allies to fight back when they can’t field a fleet right away.  Just two extra bomber units and suddenly the war changes dramatically.

And lastly… for this post… is this game board or computer?  Would you use the counters with the clickers, or is everything computerized?  How do you keep track of unit stats and hit points on bombers and so on?

I like it!  It is also somewhat easier to visualize your game now, having heard a bit more on the system.  In some ways it is good to have a generic PU, EU and MP system to avoid having to get into too much detail about how every resource or human being reaches the correct spot on the board to be turned into units.  As long as there is some complexity, and an ability to disrupt, I am cool with it.  I got a little worried when you suggested that bar a nuclear weapon, taking out an RC is next to impossible with just strategic bombing.  But then I considered everything Germany threw at London for several months and still didn’t knock it out as an effective city.  And then how much junk the Allies dropped on Dresden to decimate it.  And speaking of which… can you research improved munitions so when you do get your bombers through the air defenses, you can cause more damage?

Also, what happens to the Soviets if Germany makes it to Moscow?  What does it take to conquer a country in the game?  Can only minor nations be conquered?  Can players play minor countries?  Can Spain be brought into the war?  Are there politics to the game so maybe Hitler or the Allies can win or lose allies?  Or do minor nations simply represent resources like in Axis and Allies?  Also, when countries join a side (like Romania), can they contribute MP’s, EU’s or anything to their allied nation?

@empireman:

What if the axis won world war 2?

Since this is the actual question of this thread, I think I will give answering it a shot.

I have found quite a lot of history that does not match up with the official storyline we were taught in school.  You never read in school about Germans being used for slave labor after the war.  We are told that we had no idea Japan was coming towards Pearl Harbor even though a mountain of evidence suggests we had to have known.

That said, I think Hitler has been portrayed as too big of a bad guy and may not have done everything ascribed to him, or intended to do many of the things we have been told he would have had Germany won.  One such issue is World Domination.  Germany put no effort into building strategic bombers, something they would have needed to win if they were seeking global domination.

Certainly Germany had advanced technology, but much like Japan versus The United States, simply not enough manpower or resources to win if the Sleeping Giant decided it wanted to win instead.  For Germany to have won, so much had to have changed before the war itself.  Germany would have needed to take atomic research seriously and assume that not having it if an allied power did have it, would be unacceptable.  Germany would also have needed strategic bombers and the desire to level cities.  At no time did Hitler seem interested in crushing Britain prior to the war.  He was actually surprised they did not side with him.  Churchill is believed to have initially considered Hitler a decent person and his views reasonable.  Many in the United States were rooting for Hitler too.

So for me, part of answering this question is to assume that Germany and Japan and Italy had taken steps prior to the war, to win it and not just gain some territory to make their empires larger and stronger.

Had they won, which might only mean they held onto territory they did not have prior to the war and that the allies sued for peace, I think how life would have been different after the war would depend on what territories they were able to hold on to.  If Germany had conquered Moscow, Germany would have held on to the Ukraine, the breadbasket of the region and had plenty of food while Russia would have lost this.  Oil alone would certainly have helped the Axis.  So we have to assume the Axis were able to hold onto the Dutch East Indies, the Caucuses and perhaps even some of the Middle East.

Germany and Japan are considered to have been racist and bigoted nations, however, contrary to how we like to portray ourselves, the United States was plenty racist and bigoted even to the present.  Jews were not well liked anywhere in the world.  Blacks were considered inferior.  Asians were pretty much considered inferior too.  Unless you were White European, you were not going to be treated well and so I am not sure how much reaction anyone would have given to Germany or Japan removing or exterminating whole groups of peoples if those groups were considered of lesser value by Allied nations to begin with?

There may have been an “awakening” at some point.  We had the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, but not for twenty years after WWII ended, and even then the Blacks were not treated all that well.  Today we still imprison and subject them to state-sanctioned murder by police daily without doing anything about it.  So I just don’t see a huge uproar occurring in the 40’s or even 50’s to have changed how Japan or Germany treated people they conquered.  The Rape of Nanking only got press because we wanted to get into the war.  Otherwise I highly doubt most Americans were all that concerned about the treatment of Chinese.  Nobody did a whole lot to condemn Britain’s treatment of the peoples of India which had gone on unabated for 350 years.  And only 50 years prior the US had slaughtered the Native American’s.  So if  people want to argue that Hitler was somehow some crazed madman who wanted to kill or remove groups of peoples from his lands and that this was somehow unique and unheard of… It just isn’t accurate.  But it is hard to unite people to go to war and follow the flag without a really good villain.  And if you commit a lot of atrocities during the war yourself, it is always handy when you are the victor, to write the history in such a way as to make it seem like you were fighting evil.  When in fact, Hitler’s idea of war and conquest and race and religion was not much different than it had been viewed by humanity the two thousand years before.  And in many ways, you could argue the decades after WWII.

Someone else mentioned that the Cold War would have been multifaceted and not just the US versus Soviet Union.  That would certainly have been more true had Germany and Japan and Italy won.  Past that, I doubt much else would have changed.  It would have just been different actors doing much of what was done anyway after WWII.  There would have been just as many “little wars” all over the world as each power tried to go after their little interests.  Plenty of puppet dictators everywhere.  No less bloodshed.  The United would still have sought an empire for itself and depending on the alliances elsewhere in the world, we might have done it with Germany’s help or Japan’s help or the UK, or we might have gone it alone.  It would depend on what we did during WWII.  I just can’t see us not winning if we were involved though.  We simply had too many resources, too much manpower and too much money to have been beaten by Germany or Japan.  But if either of them had gotten nukes, that alone would have changed the outcome.  I just can’t see us suing for peace.  Because we never needed to.  We were always going to win.

If I read your rules correctly, you are saying that all technology has a set cost, thereby eliminating luck, yet you also said the United States was the only one who could get atomic bombs?  Half the reason other countries didn’t have a chance to complete their nuclear research was because they figured the war would be over too soon for it to play a role and they weren’t sure it would work.  But many countries began their research earlier than the United States.  I don’t like the fact that only the United States gets to succeed, because you are then forcing a historical outcome on the game itself.

One of the problems with recreating World War II as a game, is that we know how it turned out, we know what each side did wrong, and if we were playing the Axis, we would be stupid to make the exact same mistakes.

Consider Battleships and Aircraft Carriers.  I am pretty sure most of us would invest in carriers if we were replaying WWII and forget the battleships.  And if atomic bombs were obtainable, we would try to obtain them.

Other countries also knew the US was researching the atomic bomb and where it was doing the research.  Does the US just get to spend the EU’s and get the technology, or does it take a number of game turns?  Can their program be disrupted?  Can other programs be disrupted?  The US was fortunate in that nobody was strategically bombing it all throughout the war, but if Los Alamos had been hit by strategic bombing even once or twice, it is likely the program would not have succeeded in producing an atomic bomb by 1945.

Some other general questions I have include:
1.  How long are turns in real time?  Are they monthly, yearly?
2.  How small of units does the game account for?  Corps?  Divisions?  Brigades?  Are there individual aircraft or just entire wings?  Are fleets comprised of individual ships or are they just fleets? 
3.  You said that Strategic Bombing “permanently” reduced the production value of a city, but then suggested cities could be built up and improved?  Can you repair strategic bombing damage?

I like the idea that you want the make the game detailed, yet playable.  I have struggled in my own gaming concepts for that same balance.  I like the idea of including such detailed wartime issues as individual resources (Japan was screwed because their home islands had virtually nothing, while the US had just about everything except Uranium), individual factories such as ball bearings, batteries or shipyards, aircraft plants, electrical plants and so on.  Basically you would have to have a simple enough system to say that you need a certain amount of aluminum, iron, rubber, oil or whatever to build certain units, and the more you have (at your factories, so you have to transport it there), the more units of a certain type you can make.  If you don’t allocate properly, or someone has bombed your rail networks and you can’t get it there quickly enough, productions drops, or stops.  This is why I asked about setting back programs like the atomic bomb.  If someone had done a Doolittle Raid and took out the Uranium Enrichment facilities at Oak Ridge, and if that was the only production center… or the Germans had focused on sinking any ships leaving the Belgium Congo with the Uranium ore, suddenly the program halts for lack of materials.  So if you say that Uranium is only currently located at certain points on the map, and a country doing atomic bomb research needs X number of resource units to conduct research (more allowing for faster results), and the shipments never arrive at the production factory, or factories, suddenly 1945 arrives and there is no bomb.

So many war games leave out significant issues like supply lines.  Germany was going for the Russian oil for a reason.  Japan was going for the Dutch East Indies oil for a reason.  The US was shipping endless material to the UK for a reason.  Without it, the war efforts of those nations dwindles.  The other item is weather.  Nowadays we take for granted that aircraft fly in all kinds of weather, but back then an overcast day meant no air attacks.  The Russian Winter comes to mind as a good example.  Maybe for simplicity, you simply say that strategic bombing and air support is weakened during winter turns.

And lastly… for this post… you mentioned air combat being a big deal.  During WWII, experienced pilots were a big deal too.  When Japan and Germany started to lose theirs, it was very apparent.  Also, early in the war Japan enjoyed a somewhat qualitative edge with the Zero, which then went downhill as America built far better aircraft, whereas Germany generally fielded some of the best aircraft, but later lacked the numbers and pilots.  Will your rules account for this?  Can “units” get experience points or some other advantage?

Very cool link CWO, thanks for that!

From a mere terror standpoint, the I-400 might have worked to make American’s a little more frightened and on edge.  Japanese citizens certainly weren’t thrilled when Doolittle hit Tokyo.  It isn’t always the amount of physical damage you cause; psychology can play a vital factor in war too.  America felt invincible having not really tasted the war.  Our reaction to being hit at Pearl would not have been the same to the Japanese knocking down the Empire State Building or the hitting the White House.  Imagine those happening immediately after the Doolittle Raid.

I agree with Kurt that if the Japanese had specifically targeted things they knew they could destroy or that would seriously disrupt the war effort; such as bombing ball bearing factories or factories that produce batteries.  If you can hit the right targets, suddenly you have real disruption.  The I-400 could have afforded Japan some small measure of viable capability.  Small in the sense that it wouldn’t win the war, but I think it would have definitely been worth the investment for the capability alone.