Spring, 1943, was Typhoon. I used the push marker, all of my air, and I think the german Airborne unit to pound on Minsk and Riga. Minsk's fall I'd guaratneed, and Riga had an 80% chance of falling by the beginning of summer; I got them both in the clear. I was somewhat surprised to find the Soviet revealing Limited War Production (or something similar) rather than Stalin Orders Attack. In the Balkans, I managed to pull an attacker-retreats-forward stunt in the Mud (thanks to the ZoC-blocking effects of mountain hexsides), and reserve-moved some germans into Bucharest, liberating Rumania and preserving my Tide 2 for the summer of Barbarossa. Meanwhile in the mud, alex made disengaging attacks all along the Stalin Line so that when Barbarossa hit in the summer I had a line of empty two-step forts facing me. In the Balkans, the turks move up to besiege Athens, though Alex declines to spend steps on the assault yet.
I'd been expecting reasonable luck from the delay dice, such that my massive expenditure of Air in Typhoon would not adversely hinder Barbarossa. I was not to be rewarded: 2, 4, 6, 6, 6. Fortunately, I was at Tide 2, but I wasn't seeing nearly as much air for Barbarossa as I was expecting.
I "managed" to lose the three armor steps I needed to lose during Typhoon to avoid being forced to take some of Barbarossa's armor replacements as infantry.
The first turn of barbarossa picked up Zhmerinka and I reserve-moved a panzer corps into Dnepropetrovsk. Having only one air unit present meant I ended up passing on an attack on kiev. A second air would have been enough to take the hex with guys who'd exploited south from Minsk during Typhoon, but the best laid plans; my clever plan to blast the lone 0-3-0 in Zhmerinka with a 9-1 and try to exploit a bunch of 6-6-3's and PzrC to attack Kiev and the fort in Bessarabia in regular combat failed due to a Dr2 0/2. I did manage to reserve-move a panzer step to Dnepropetrovsk, since there weren't any soviet forces that could effectively counterattack the city and General Mobilization has only conditional steps. In the north, I cleared out all the line forts in Byelorus but was essentially unable to engage any mobile soviet forces. With Riga, Minsk, Zhmerinka, and Dnepropetrovsk, I had a 50% chance at a Political Option off of Barbarossa, but missed it.
Not that I'm sure what I would have used the Political Option for... if I'd brought in the Finns and General Mobilization was up, they'd get liberated thanks to its push marker. I could have put a pro-Axis neutrality marker on Sweden. There really weren't Soviet units in Axis ZoC that I was afraid of having run away, so all I figured I'd get from a failure would be popping the PVO that was showing up on the second turn of summer.
The british threw an RAF unit into the Eastern Med to keep me out of Syria while they DoW'd it; I contested with the Italian navy and ended up rolling an 11 (-2, so effectively a 9) on the delay roll... they of course had another RAF to fill the gap.
Alex figures my dice luck is just payback for sleazing into Bucharest...
I put two U-Boats into the Strategic Warfare Box on the first turn of summer, since I was pretty sure the brits would be playing Soviet Lend-Lease. Since an Armistice was in effect, they couldn't contest. Then, I clocked the Armistice down to Negotiations, so that by the time Delay rolls are made, they'll push back the Lend-Lease marker.
The Soviets are set to reveal Great Patriotic War, which presumably means that the panzer corps in Dnepropetrovsk is about to give up the ghost.
Step counts, approximate: The germans have something like 91 steps on the map, including 12 panzer. Total commitments *not* in the USSR are up a tad, as I've got germans covering Prague and Lvov now, where there used to be Hungarians (who're now covering the Pripet Marsh to prevent polish partisans from popping up and screwing up my supply lines). So, i've probably got somewhere around 55 german steps in the USSR.
Soviets have 59 steps on the map, including 1 tank. GPW is about to be played, and that'll put down 18 infantry and 2 armor. (This means that the net effect of Limited War Production, Great Patriotic War, Typhoon, and the first turn of Barbarossa has been killing approximately 2 net soviet steps.)
The Axis currently nets Six strat hexes (Antwerp, Oslo, Paris, London, Lisbon, Athens, Minsk, minus Ankara). Kiev is presumably going to fall during this summer. I'll need two more of {Leningrad, Moscow, Rostov, Sevastopol, Cairo} to get to Tide 3; it definitely doesn't look like I'll get there before Blue....
The brits are pretty snug in El Alamein, and the lack of support units means that I'm not going to be cracking that position this summer. I'm definitly not looking forward to the arrival to the americans... the Brits are only limited by steps right now, and though that's a pretty severe limitation, it's not going to last forever.
In our next session...