Middle Orient Strategies!

[Viktor_Kormel_slith]

After an incredible succesfull axis campaign in North Africa, I am in mar/apr 1942 and this is the situation. Iraq is aligned and next impulse I will align Persia. A weak british expeditionary force is in kuwait. Japan is hard pressed in China. US and URSS are still neutral. Sirya is Vichy. We don´t play with supply units.My question is, how can I exploit this situation? How can attack Caucasus? Afrika korps is out of supply in Iraq. No railways, no way to advanced? am I in a dead road?[&:] Help! It´s the first time that I can win the game playing with axis![:D]

[Ur_Vile_WEdge]

Edited after re-reading more carefully.

If you can't stick HQ in Syria, you'll need to chain a bunch of HQ through the desert to reach back to Amman, and then Jerusalem, and from there via rail to port to Italy.

This, is of course prohibitively expensive, so it's not sustainable in the long term. What you want to try to do is get your army based around Basra/Kuwait (kick the CW out) and then have convoys in the Red Sea, Arabian Sea and the Persian gulf. It'll take a lot of navs and fighters to keep them secure, I'm afraid, and it becomes tremendously easier if you can take Aden.

If you're playing the Soviets, btw (for future reference) you shouldn't allow this to happen. Letting the Germans drive in through the Caucasus is really bad. If it looks like Egypt will fall, especially if the Germans are doing a 41 drive through the Med, you need to be prepared to conquer Persia. If the Soviets are dug in around Ifsahn and that rail line to the west of it, it's almost impossible to dig them out.

[Viktor_Kormel_slith]

I play with a friend of mine. He played some risky stategies and I had many luck in med. The game was going bad for me until that in a pair of desperate impulses I won a big air naval battle in med and the most important,I invaded Gibraltar (only succes possibility with two results in 2d10). "URSS" was surprised by the sudden change of tide but there is some elite troops near Baku. I was afraid that you say will be the unique strategig solutions. Bad news for me, I have only 2 HQ in Africa and 1 more on the way. The brits have a heavy fleet in Aden. My naval air force suffered heavy casualties in struggle for the mediterranean and in sudanese desert there is no good base to gain red sea. Maybe my best option is sit and strength an augmented fortress Europe. It´s a pity, I never could try two pronged Barbarossa in boardgame but it seems very difficult in MWIF. [:@]

[Centuur]

ORIGINAL: Ur_Vile_WEdge

You'll either need to chain HQs all the way back to Syria (you did take Syria, right?) or have the Italians break out with convoys into the Red Sea and around the gulf of Arabia, (Take Aden if you can), and have a headquarters behind the line to use the Persian rail net.


Not directly relevant, but something for the future if you're playing solitaire like I'm assuming you are. It's virtually a death sentence to let the Germans attack Russia up through Iran. If it looks like the Germans are going to break the British in Egypt, you MUST be ready to attack Persia with the Soviets.

+1. The moment it looks like the Euroaxis are likely to align Iraq, an attack on Persia in force by the USSR (and if possible also the capture of Iraq by the USSR, but you might be to late for that) has to be done. If only to put the Germans as far as possible from the Caucasus region.

Personally, I like to take out Persia with the USSR somewhere in 1940, if US entry allows this and the Japanese can't mess up things in Persia. Persia has oil and even for a neutral USSR this is nice to have available (if only to be able to use the oil you can't put into the factories for reorganisation).
This gives the USSR the capability of capturing Iraq if it looks like the Italians/Germans are playing to align the country...

A German attack made directly from the Persian-USSR border is very, very dangerous for the USSR. You need as many mountains between the USSR-Turkish border as possible...

[Viktor_Kormel_slith]

Thanks, I agree you both about URSS and Persia but like I said before, this was a strange game in dice roll terms. US entry is bad or my enemy is a very good poker player, he isn´t I know him very well[:D]! That´s the reason of passive URSS and He focused in agressive China cause I was playing Japan in defensive mode. With Axis poor intial campaigns he didn´t worry about Persia until it was too late. Anyway, how I see there are many logistical problems to take Afrika korps to Baku. You need at least 3 or 4 HQs or smash the british fleet. I think even with many luck like I had a near impossible task.

[Ur_Vile_WEdge]

You don't need to "smash" the british fleet. A cardinal rule of WiF is that planes kill ships. What you do need are a bunch of navs, and to creep them into the appropriate sea zones. At that point, it almost doesn't matter how many BB he sends, you can pick them off with little risk if you control the skies.

[Viktor_Kormel_slith]

At least I´ll try what you say, maybe late to harm russia but it will favor the japanese advance in Asia