AHAHHAHAHAH Absolutely true.


Honestly, though, I want to give it a good shove this weekend. I'm ready and willing to commit for a full wargaming weekend.


Mostly because my WartHog throttle isn't detected by the Pc anymore.
I'm afraid the firmware is borked.

While komemiute is busy fighting in 1940's Europe, I'm busy fighting in 56 BC Europe.

Fine then, why don't you write some letters to the senate & population of this forum describing your feats?

I'm writing the report and uploading pics.
It has been... interesting.

My plan is afoot.
AAR-wise it doesn't really look like much happened to my side of the story.
But I spent no less than 3 hours carefully changing the frontline troops to better fit the... plan.

I'll call it... Cavatappi!

But let's go in order...
From the closing days of May to over the first half of July- nearly two months, this has been the German Advance on the Russian Motherland.

Not bad...

If it wasn't for the following FIVE weeks brought in THIS result...


An impressive speed-up, surely due to the breakthrough of the Russian lines...
The time might come soon for some Cavatappi...


For over the last two weeks of July on the western front these regions swapped hands almost at a constant rate...



With the final situation that remained this...

for quite a bit.
I guess someone simply shouldn't overexert its forces, uh?
But please mind those two little regions circled in white at the bottom...
That would be the main fulcrum of the Cavatappi maneuver-

This is the big action plan...

While the forces marked by the yellow lines are going to defend our soil, the green units will exploit the chokepoint in the german-held regions to provide some hand-made Italian-styled Old-fashioned "Sculacciata"

But to actually do this I need more armourre divisions.
Which luckily will be ready not too far from now...

Around the end of September.

By the end of Smeptember more technical Advancements are planned too...

All in all looks good.

For the Tech report- a good deal of improvements.








My problem with these is that they require now an insane amount of production to bring up to date all of my forces...
I'm half thinking to stop this and do something else, strategies or such- we'll see.

So, will this Winter of '42 bring Italy among the fighting nations?
Stay tuned.

While you build new units and research, just remember that Germany is outbuilding you and is way out researching you.

Germany is also fighting a two front war...

Which means their divisions are getting more experience. Also doesn't a country get improved doctrinal research ability as a result of combat?

Makes me wonder why we are not all writing in German..

I do.

Aw, c'mon ! It's been over a week.

Some Australians* have a theory that it was because Eva was constipated.

*By "some" I mean these guys singing a potentially NSFW song.

As a matter of fact last night I did play an hour or so- a full month in game time.

It was... interesting and depressing at the same time.
(Going to upload pictures as soon as I'm home again)

The situation is dire. As you can see from my previous post Germany is invading deep the Mother Russia.
There's apparently no stop to the Blitzkrieg that's raging from West to East...

And about two weeks into September it happens... Moskau and Leningrad are surrounded and under siege.
Stalingrad is a bit further down the road so for now there's time, but it does look grim.

After a whole week of fighting Moskau and Leningrad are simply swallowed.
Yes- that's right, the Nazi Germany finally conquered two of the most important Russian metropolis.

Few days left to October and Russia is on its knees.
There's a very eloquent screenshot that show how close to surrender they are.

That's not good.
Plus the Western front is still goddamn stuck between France and Belgium with few square kilometers changing hands weekly...

I need, terribly need, to open up a front in a decisive and cohesive way- not just a rag tag band of screaming kids with a rifle, but an experienced and well behaving army with a clear and plausible objective in mind.

I've taken a screenshot of that too- My plan is to invade the former Austrian region for a hundred kilometers or so- as to relieve pressure on the Swiss and hopefully start a joint-push, together with Allied forces, from the South western German regions towards North.

There's no way this can end otherwise.
I love my Country and fellow Italians but this is getting bigger than everything.

We need to do our part.

Luckily in September we finally produced our first modern and well trained Armoured Division. The first of many- in the restructuring of our largely infantry-laden army.

Deployed in a key section will be the main force behind the tip of the spear, composed smartly of lightly armoured/mechanized fast division that will cut North into German soil to the cut toward West to surround and cut off the actual German Divisions attacking Switzerland.

The peaceful days of Italy are numbered.

I can only hope this is for the best.

There's a heavy storm incoming...

Can you check the "Infrastructure" view of the mountain border regions? If you start your surprise attack you may try to advance into as many and as far forward as possible into those (as long as the advance is uncontested!) - not so much for the conquest, but for a later fighting retreat. And just for the purpose of fighting battles in them, not to hold them.
As far as I remember, every time a battle takes place in/over a region and changes ownership, it's infrastructure suffers destruction and degrades, slowing down troop movement and reducing supply flow into/through it. I guess that's the reason why the war at the Swiss border "stopped", and you may try to achieve the same over those Austrian mountain regions.
That will then leave the main threat of a fast mobile/mechanized/armored (counter-)attack to the eastern Italian/Austrian border and toward Slovenia/Croatia etc.

On the previous page I saw that you apparently have little to no espionage - would have been interesting to see what's in Munich, Vienna; Innsbruck seems to be empty and may provide you with a forward airfield, ...

Edit: I guess the Reich has not build a mediterranean navy to invade your coastlines?!

@WhoCares: Infrastructures on both sides of my northern border are excellent.
As there's virtually no German units (safe for those two Swiss regions) I could in theory dash inward quite a lot, my problem would then be the bulging frontline.
I'd have to spread my not-too-many units too much and risk a breakthrough...

If I manage to get a "buffer" strip of land I can re-deploy my units nearly exactly as they are now, just a "hop" closer to Berlin, so to speak.

This way, if push come to shove I can still fall back on my previously border-regions were I know I have strongholds and reorganize there.

This works for me VERY WELL as my "invasion" movement (that is without enemy units to challenge me) is hassle free even if it's in the mountains.
When the Germans will come (and they will, trust me) they'll do an "attack" movement (that is a drive into foreign land with enemy to oppose you) and suffer quite the penalty.

Good call on the infrastructures decay though- I'll keep that in mind.
There are a couple of Austrian airfields I could clearly use to support our grunts better and the plan obviously includes them.

My strategic train of thoughts is that by opening a Southern front- and by joining forces with the Allied troops pouring in from Switzerland, we "could" finally tilt the Western front just enough and stop all of this madness.

On a side note, I forgot to write before, my amassing of troops against the German border brought me to drift towards the Allied political axis.
The moment I declare War I'm going full Democracy!
It will take a while...

Man, I feel like the fate of the World depends on my actions within the next few months!

I'll grab a couple screenshots of the North border.

Lord Duce, approves the use of Bothans dying to gain valuable intelligence on the enemy's dispositions.
It helps keeps Stormtroopers alive.



The Scearmundyellundbombsgedroppen nears.



Soon my pretties, soon.

Ok, pictures as promised.

Western Front situation at the beginning of the turn:


Eastern front, same time:

Please notice the Coloured circles (Yellow Leningrad, Cyan Moskau, Green Stalingrad) and the double white line for the frontline.

A week in, close ups of Russian main cities:
Leningrad


Moskau


Stalingrad


Five more days and...

Uh. Oh.

Population not too happy either.
You can see here Russia is nearly 80% ready to surrender.
Damn, where Winter when you need it?



Luckily I'm re-drifting towards the good guys again.


Ooh, look- finally some decent Armor!



Which I will put here.

This way I can drive hard North into Pfunds and then turn left and hammer the German units between a rock and a hard place.

How I want to end up- Please notice the Innsbruck Airfield. Generals- I want that.


END TURN PICS:

How the Western front looks like:


Aaaaand how the Eastern front looks like

Mind you, just four weeks- damn the Blitzkrieg to hell.

Generic Scientific Progress:







I tried taking the screenshots for the infrastructures but only shows mine. Sorry.
But my--- intelligence, showed me a peek and it looks paved roads, nice and smooth.

I think the Soviets are going to cease offering any resistance soon. I don't think those lines are going to stiffen.

Where's Zhukov when they need him...


Wheels

I must be honest, it does look grim.

The resources Germany can get with the Russian defeat...
In one of the screenshots can be seen that USA started having Economic deals with Japan.