Eighty years on. 6th August 1940

Historical

Wind and low clouds deterred much flying over southern England.  Hurricanes of 85 Squadron intercepted and shot down a Dornier Do17 bomber reconnoitring a shipping convoy east of Lowestoft. One British pilot was killed when his Hurricane crashed on take-off and caught fire.  One German aircraft bombed the RAF station at Llandow, South Wales.

The first contingent of airmen from Southern Rhodesia arrived in Britain to join those from other Commonwealth nations, as well as Polish, Czech, French and other exiles.

The British submarine HMS Sealion was rammed and damaged by the German antisubmarine vessel UJ-123 while running at periscope depth attacking a convoy off the south coast of Norway.

The British submarine HMS Pandora reached Malta from Gibraltar with ground equipment and spare parts for the Hurricanes delivered by the aircraft carrier HMS Argus on 2^nd August.

The Italians captured Odweina in British Somaliland.

The American ambassador to Belgium, John Cudahy, said that the food situation in Belgium and northern France was desperate and suggested that the Nazis seemed to be expecting outside aid to solve the food shortage for them.  Britain was blockading shipments to Germany the occupied countries.

The U.S. Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, called for a massive arms build-up to dissuade hostile countries from attacking the U.S.A.

Game day 341. Great Britain and the commonwealth.

Britain collected 28 Industrial Resource Points.

The Battleship bound for Singapore left India and sailed east towards the Strait of Malacca, and the troopships for Australia sailed into the Indian Ocean.

In Egypt the British and Commonwealth infantry held their line.  A two-pronged attack was made by eleven infantry units against six Italian armoured units.  Two Italian units were lost for one British and the Italians retreated westwards.  To the south, on the Sudanese border with East Africa the British counterattacked with eleven infantry units against three.  The British lost three units to the Italians two, but the remaining Italian unit withdrew to the east, pursued by five British units.  Britain recruited eight new infantry units locally.  Five more infantry units were recruited in Trans-Jordan, the other side of the Suez Canal.

In Kenya/Rhodesia eighteen Infantry units advanced north and east to meet the Italian threat.

The planned attack by the naval force in Gibraltar against French warships at Mers-el-Kebir was called off after Algeria, including the naval units there, had joined the Free French.  However, there were two battleships in Marseilles that needed to be dealt with, so the three battleships sailed from Gibraltar and an ultimatum was given to Vichy France to surrender their ships, to sail them to a neutral port, or have them destroyed.

One Merchantman escorted by two battleships reached Halifax, Nova Scotia, to collect Canadian troops.  A Canadian merchant ship loaded one armoured unit aboard in the St. Lawrence River.  Two loaded cargo ships sailed from Boston to Halifax to join the convoy.

Six bomber units flew from the UK to attack factories in Germany.  Flying a dog-leg route to avoid enemy troops they managed a spectacular six points of damage to production.  This severely disrupted the production of more fighters for the Luftwaffe.

An aircraft carrier set out from Liverpool to deliver fighters to Malta.  Note that Malta does not exist on the game map, so I created it.

Five submarines in the North Atlantic fanned out to seek the German submarines and two successfully located the enemy.  There was a one-on- one engagement to the east of Scotland, which was inconclusive.  Further west one submarine located and attacked three Germans.  One German submarine was sunk.