WIE noob AAR: reaching the "find out" point of the FAFO cycle

[FOARP]

29 May 1944. Murmansk falls, the Soviets are now cut off from supply via the Artic convoys. Another nail in the coffin of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics!

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On the Stalingrad front, Astrakhan is now threatened and the North-South railway cut - the reversal at Verkhniy Baskunchak in December has been avenged, and the Soviet Union is effectively cut in two.

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In Saudi Arabia, the planned punishment expedition seems to be in trouble - the Saudi Army is stronger than I had thought possible, with two garrisons in the east and an infantry corps in the west. The "special military operation" Mussolini's men were supposed to carry out against weak opposition does not appear like it's going to work. Graziani's army has been moved from Normandy to the Greek ports ready to reinforce them.

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[FOARP]

It was possible to move Graziani's army since the job in Normandy appears mostly done - the British are bottled up, an attempt at landing an HQ unit and heavy artillery was ambushed and destroyed by German light naval forces. British morale continues to decline - now at 33%.

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[FOARP]

20 June 1944. Volkhov has fallen to the volunteers of the Spanish Blue Division. No more national morale objectives are left in the USSR. Quite a turn around from last year!

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[FOARP]

On the Saudi front the special forces originally mobilised for the invasion slog on but clearly aren't up to the task of regular combat. Fortunately heavy reinforcements under Graziani are now well on their way.

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[FOARP]

19 August 1944. Wir Fahren Gegen Engeland! The battle in the air is still hard-fought, but the steady erosion of the Royal Navy, and the destruction of the British Army in the fighting in Normandy, left open the door for an assault against Southern England. A landing by Model's Panzer and Panzergrenadier forces backed up by parachute forces dropped inland and a diversionary attack on East Anglia has taken London. It seems unlikely that the British can recover.

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In Saudi Arabia the population has risen against the invasion and the Italians are assaulted at multiple points along the corridor to Medina. This is turning out much more difficult that it should have been!

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[FOARP]

2 September 1944. The Russians are beaten. In the Caucasus the advanced reconnaissance units of Rommel's Afrika Korps advancing from the south have made contact with Kesselring's 1st Infantry Corps advancing from the north. The Afrika Korps's advance of thousands of miles all the way from Benghazi to Georgiyevsk via Cairo, Baghdad, and Tehran will become a legend of modern warfare.

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South of Moscow, the Kluge's men marching from Kharkov in the south have made contact with Von Rundstedt's men marching from Moscow in north, cutting the Soviet salient that has for so long troubled the Axis forces.

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In the UK, the Allies have failed to retake London. Another wave of Axis reinforcements is set to arrive. Another wave of US transports has been wiped out by German forces in the Atlantic before it could even arrive. The war here is over.

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[FOARP]

Aaaand: that is that!

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In terms of losses inflicted, actually quite one-sided.

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This AAR was named after the FAFO cycle because I genuinely thought I had "F$%^ed Around" and was going to "Find Out" in the early months of 1943. This was because my forces took very heavy losses in that time, as encircled forces in the USSR faced heavy counter-attacks - the heaviest losses I suffered in the whole game date to that period, as indicated by the spike in the red line in the below graph. The forces I had planned on using to avoid these encirclements by giving supporting attacks were entirely eaten up by two unexpected amphibious invasions - the Americans in Algeria and the British and Canadians in Northern France.

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That this DIDN'T happen came down to a few factors. Firstly, my forces had captured supply hexes that in Moscow and Stalingrad that gave them just enough supplies to survive. The survival of the Moscow kessel particularly relied on this. Considering that the western part of Moscow was only taken by sheer luck, this was a very fortuitous event. Had it not happen, I would have likely lost the entirety of the Moscow army and my front would have collapsed. That would have spelled defeat.

The second is that I was able to liquidate the Leningrad front. This freed up an army to rescue the position in Moscow, which was set to collapse eventually.

The third was the arrival of the Afrika Korps in Northern Iran. This drew off an entire Soviet army that would have otherwise crushed my forces around Stalingrad.

The fourth was my destruction of an entire US army in the Atlantic, which itself turned on the detection of a transport crossing the Atlantic by German intelligence. I could not have survived this army arriving on either the Algerian or the Normandy fronts, and had they been bound for the UK they would have doomed any invasion there.

Obviously this was all against the AI - a human player would have made me pay despite the above.

Bottom line is I had an absolute blast playing this game. Many thanks to everyone who worked on it. I've had WiE sitting on my Steam account for a long time after picking it up in a sale and it was worth every penny, I'm looking forward to more play throughs.

[Duedman]

Very enjoyable AAR
What immediatly strikes the eye is that you do not understand how supply works in this game.
You might want to read up on this.
Basic rule: Put HQs into cities whenever possible. A russian town of 5 will be boosted to an 8 by a HQ sitting in it.
If you manage to find something bigger than 5 (Smolensk, Kharkov, Rostov etc.) a HQ will convert it to 10.
If you find cities even bigger (Moscow, Stalingrad and Leningrad grow to 7) you can even put the HQ 1 hex next to it and it will still convert it to a 10.

Press "S" for current supply. Press "S" twice for supply next turn.
Advanced rule: Chain HQs. There can be a chain of up to 2 HQs (the game engine determines the pairing).
If an HQ in a city produces supply, another HQ with weak supply will get automatically boosted.
All the receiving HQ needs is to get 1 (one) supply from the distributing HQ. The receiving HQ is capped at 8 supply. But thats still so much better than sitting there with the tiny base supply a cut off HQ provides.
One prime example would have been your struggling front at Moscow. Placed correctly the Italian HQ could have supported the German making it an 8.
This in turn would have provided a 7 (or 6 if in woods) to the surrounding units. Supply 6 is the minimum to fully heal units.
Also units combat readiness drops which basically is the percentage their attack und defense stats are multiplied with.
So supply is king.
Again - press "S" often.

With all that said I'm still a bit jealous. You clearly had a very great gaming experience and it was fun to read!