An exciting time period once the tears had dried in my eyes. As I watched the attacks go in one after the other at 1.5:1 I was incredulous. One or
even two of the attacks causing me damage I could accept, but all four!
Even my DAS let me down (although admittedly it reduced odds from 3:1 or 2:1
in all cases) by falling prey to accurate AA fire. Oh well, never
underestimate the enemy ability to take risks and the curse of the die. The
landing at Pas de Calais lacks the AEC nullifying terrain of Normandy and it
showed when a modifier of +1 was enough to force a retreat into terrain that
was choc-a-bloc with units or in enemy ZoC. As for the Brits in Bourges,
that was just jammy! Watch the flanks!!

The critical factor in this time period was that it again drained the
British RPs and put a dent in the US pool, all this before the German can
convert most of his units to higher defence strength and the really bad
terrain of Holland and the Westwall comes up. The prospect of liberating
Norway are starting to look slim unless the remainder of Italy can fall
before mud/snow chokes up the map, but we’ll have to wait and see.

With two turns (special June turn included in this game) until I could enter
northern Italy and avoid an extra 15 REs of German being released from the
South-east, the German player knew this so the Franco-Italian border was
manned by a couple of amputees with shotguns while five XXs worth of British
and allied units waited to cross the border and flood the Lombardy plain.

The declaration of emergency is a real pain for the allies as it gives the
germans the ability to rebuild a lot of units lost in desperate EX battles
of in holding up the main allied advance. Oh well, Paris will be mine
soon….