Time for the next "Unconditional Surrender" training scenario, the invasion of Denmark and Norway in spring 1940. This scenario mainly introduces seaborne invasions, para drops and the effect of weather. Unlike Poland 1939, we also have a whole two turns to play!
I have to confess that as a game covering the invasion of Norway, I was a bit disappointed to find that the map only covers the bottom part of the country. This is very much a training scenario and not much of a two player game. At least in the Poland scenario you could experiment with different Polish deployments. Anyway, I digress.
The Germans have two turns (April, May) to conquer both Denmark and Norway. The former by occupying any Danish city, the latter by occupying Oslo. The normal National Will/country collapse rules are not used. The complication being that Norway has a large amount of water between it and Germany, while the weather is very likely to be bad, which has a major impact on military operations.
The Germans have two armies, 1st and 10th, located around Kiel. In support that also have 1 Luftflotte which is already carrying two sorties. They also have a pair of special counters, a paradrop and a 'surprise attack' which personally I think should be called 'prepared attack; but that is what the game calls it.
Paradrops can only be placed within three hexes of a friendly air unit, so to drop paras in Norway, we are going to need to take Aalborg at the top of Denmark on turn 1 and stage Luftflotte 1 up there.
The defenders are pre placed. One Danish Army in the peninsular which blocks the rail line and puts a ZOC across the German line of advance. The Norweigans have two armies, one in Oslo and one next to it. All these are armies are reduced strength garrison units, so only have one step, and also have -2 combat modifiers.
The main complication for the Germans is the weather. If it is poor or severe, units cant conduct mobile attacks, just assaults, which essentially means one attack per turn. There are also negative combat modifiers attacking in bad weather AND air units are penalised. In April 1940, there is only a 1:6 chance of good weather, and the weather is duly rolled up as 'poor'.
To attack Denmark, I could opt to use my paradrop to take Copenhagen or Aalborg. They have a 50:50 chance of taking an unoccupied city. Or I could drop it on the Danish Army, which gives a hefty combat bonus. If I use it now though, it wont be available to attack Norway.
Similarly, I could use my 'surprise attack' marker to conduct an amphibious invasion of Copenhagen or Aalborg as 10th Army is loaded up in Kiel ready to invade. However if I do that, again it will be unavailable to attack Norway. I cant just sail to an unoccupied port in Norway using naval transport as you can only unload in a friendly port, and Bergen, Stavanger and Trondheim are distinctly unfriendly. I cant paradrop onto one of them first either as my air is too far away.
So, the Germans play it safe and just attack Denmark with infantry and airpower. The poor weather doesn't impact movement, but it imposes an extra MP cost to attack a hex and has various negative combat modifiers to both ground and air power. The main thing is that you cannot conduct mobile (ie multiple) attacks in bad weather, you are restricted to a single 'assault' attack which ends your turn when resolved.
1st Army crosses the border and assaults the Danes with air support from Luftflotte 1.
This isn't like Poland where the Germans accrue huge combat bonuses! Even with the low quality of the Danes and air support, it ends up as +4. A big dice roll is enough for a DD result and the Danes are removed. A DR result would be OK as they'd have to retreat towards Copenhagen, which would allow 10th Army to (just) slip around the west and enter Alborg to be in position to attack Norway in May. A failed attack would be a disaster though, as it would mean an unsupported naval invasion of Oslo.
1st Army occupies the empty hex and ends it turns. 10th Army takes Aalborg and the air unit stages up there (using up another sortie). With Aalborg occupied, Denmark surrenders and Copenhagen becomes German controlled. There isn't much the Norwegians can do, but I move their second Army east of Oslo as that green hex is also invadeable.
So, in May I roll poor weather again (50:50 chance of fine), but go ahead anyway. The Para Drop goes on Oslo, which will give a combat bonus and then the 'surprise' attack goes on Oslo too, which is resolved immediately. I can invade either Oslo itself or an adjacent hex, but it seems pretty obvious to go straight for the city as I will have to assault it given the weather.
10th Army is the only unit starting on a port (you cant move and then invade), so off it goes with a big red assault marker. I put in Luftflotte 1 as well, which negates the city defence bonus. I'd completely forgotten to reset the number of sorties at the end of last turn too, but that doesn't matter as we are only making one attack here. I'd also completely forgotten the Allies have two 'ground support' markers, but this seems a good point to throw them into combat. That negates the paradrop combat bonus.
The Germans just scrape a DR result and manage to crawl ashore.
Now by rights Norway surrenders at this point (you can see what I mean about it not being a very interesting scenario for the Allied player!) but I thought it would be fun to mount a counterattack. An interesting feature of assault combat is that you can combine multiple units, which gives extra combat bonuses (+1 per unit). Anyway, the Norwegians went in but attacking a city in poor weather with garrison troops against 1940 Germans went as well as could be expected.
I made more mistakes than I mentioned in the narrative, so tried it again. This one is a lot faster to play than Poland 1939 as there are so few units.
Poor weather again in April 1940 (fair weather on a 1 only, severe weather on a 6! - you really don't want severe weather). The Danes put in one ground support unit as this is a bit of an iffy combat for the Germans, but once again the Germans managed to roll a +2 differential, which combined with their other bonuses was enough to win.
And once again we are set up to invade Norway in May 1940. I wonder if it is possible to attack Oslo in April 1940? Hmm, fair weather might allow a mobile attack to take Aalborg with just 1st Army, then stage the air and go for it with 10th Army in Kiel?
Anyway, such dreaming aside, in goes the combined para/amphibious assault on Oslo in May 1940.
And a huge dice roll obliterates the defenders anyway.
I went through all the various modifiers and this is what the Allies would need to defeat the attack (ie avoid a DR result). If they had both ground support units, it would need to be a +2 differential, so definitely not a sure thing for the Germans, but still a fairly likely victory.
That was actually a good learning experience as I got my head around some of the more arcane aspects of the rules covering Paras and seapower, but clearly important ones for operations in Europe, particularly the invasions of Italy, France and North Africa! It was only the following day that I realised I'd forgotten to reset the air power markers.
The next scenario in the series is France 1940, which is an altogether more serious affair. Interestingly the game also includes a 'France 1941' scenario where the French have rearmed - rather like the alternate OOB games in AHGCs 'France 1940'. Anyway, I'll stick to 1940 France as there is plenty going on in that one.
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