Axis & Allies is a series of World War II strategy board games. The first version was initially published in 1981 and a second edition known colloquially as Axis & Allies: Classic was published in 1984. Played on a board depicting a Spring 1942 political map of Earth divided by territories, players take the role of one or more of the five major belligerents of World War II: the Axis powers of Germany and Japan; and the Allied powers of the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Turn rotates among these belligerents, who control armies of playing pieces with which they attempt to capture enemy territories, with results determined by dice rolls.
The military history of the United Kingdom in World War II covers the Second World War against the Axis powers, starting on 3 September 1939 with the declaration of war by the United Kingdom and France, followed by the UK's Dominions and Crown colonies, on Nazi Germany in response to the invasion of Poland by Germany. There was little, however, the Anglo-French alliance could do or did do to help Poland. The Phoney War culminated in April 1940 with the German invasion of Denmark and Norway. Winston Churchill became prime minister and head of a coalition government in May 1940. The defeat of other European countries followed – Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and France – alongside the British Expeditionary Force which led to the Dunkirk evacuation.
The European theatre of World War II was one of the two main theatres of combat during World War II. It saw heavy fighting across Europe for almost six years, starting with Germany's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939 and ending with the Western Allies conquering most of Western Europe, the Soviet Union conquering most of Eastern Europe and Germany's unconditional surrender on 8 May 1945 but the fighting continued until the end of the Battle of Odzak on 25 May. The Allied powers fought the Axis powers on two major fronts as well as in a strategic bombing offensive and in the adjoining Mediterranean and Middle East theatre.
The Pacific War, sometimes called the Asia–Pacific War, was the theater of World War II that was fought in Asia, the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and Oceania. It was geographically the largest theater of the war, including the vast Pacific Ocean theater, the South West Pacific theater, the Second Sino-Japanese War, and the Soviet–Japanese War.
Advanced Third Reich is a board wargame originally designed by Bruce Harper as a simulation of the European and African theatres of World War II. The game was published by Avalon Hill, who then sold the license to Hasbro, and was marketed as "the ultimate World War II strategy game". Advanced Third Reich is a rewrite of Rise and Decline of the Third Reich (1974), incorporating and developing many suggestions which had been published in The General since the early 1980s, improving ease of play and historical realism.
Axis & Allies: Europe is a strategic board wargame produced by Hasbro under the Avalon Hill name brand. Designed by Larry Harris, who designed the original Axis & Allies board game, Axis & Allies: Europe focuses game play on the European Theatre of World War II.
Axis & Allies: Pacific is a strategy board game produced by Hasbro under the Avalon Hill name brand. Released on July 31, 2001 and designed by Larry Harris, the designer of the original Axis & Allies game, Axis & Allies: Pacific allows its players to recreate the Pacific Theater of World War II.
Almost every country in the world participated in World War II. Most were neutral at the beginning, but only a relatively few nations remained neutral to the end. The Second World War pitted two alliances against each other, the Axis powers and the Allied powers; the Soviet Union served 35 million men and women, with the U.S serving 16 million, Germany 13 million, the British Empire 8.5 million and Japan 6 million. It is estimated that in total 127 million people were mobilised during the war. It is generally estimated that a total of 72 million people died, with the lowest estimate being 40 million dead and the highest estimate being 90 million dead. The leading Axis powers were Nazi Germany, the Empire of Japan and the Kingdom of Italy; while the British Empire, the United States and the Soviet Union were the "Big Three" Allied powers.
World in Flames is a board wargame designed by Harry Rowland and released in 1985 by the Australian Design Group. It is currently in its 8th edition, World in Flames - Collector's Edition, each new edition featuring changes to the rules, maps and counters provided with the game.
The Allies were an international military coalition formed during the Second World War (1939–1945) to oppose the Axis powers, led by Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and Fascist Italy. Its principal members by 1941 were the United Kingdom, United States, Soviet Union, and China.
Empire of The Rising Sun (RSN–1995) is a board wargame published originally by Avalon Hill, designed by Bruce Harper with much input by Dave Casper into the naval warfare rules. This is the Pacific War companion game to Advanced Third Reich (A3R), using similar rules, and containing once again a copy of "Ultra" magazine with a synopsis of the game. A previous version, occasionally discussed in the pages of The General magazine, had been in development the late 1970s, but was never published.
The military history of the United States in World War II covers the victorious Allied war against the Axis Powers, starting with the 7 December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor. During the first two years of World War II, the United States had maintained formal neutrality as made official in the Quarantine Speech delivered by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1937, while supplying Britain, the Soviet Union, and China with war materiel through the Lend-Lease Act which was signed into law on 11 March 1941, as well as deploying the US military to replace the British forces stationed in Iceland. Following the "Greer incident" Roosevelt publicly confirmed the "shoot on sight" order on 11 September 1941, effectively declaring naval war on Germany and Italy in the Battle of the Atlantic. In the Pacific Theater, there was unofficial early US combat activity such as the Flying Tigers.
Axis & Allies: Battle of the Bulge is a board game which depicts the Battle of the Bulge, the "last-ditch" offensive of World War II by Nazi Germany. It is similar to Axis & Allies: D-Day in that the game is played on a tactical rather than strategic level, although the gameplay is radically different from D-Day or any other previous Axis and Allies game. It is designed by Larry Harris, and published by Avalon Hill.
The neutral powers were countries that remained neutral during World War II. Some of these countries had large colonies abroad or had great economic power. Spain had just been through its civil war, which ended on 1 April 1939 —a war that involved several countries that subsequently participated in World War II.
P.T.O., released as Teitoku no Ketsudan (提督の決断) in Japan, is a console strategy video game released by Koei. It was originally released for the PC-9801 in 1989 and had been ported to various platforms, such as the X68000, FM Towns, PC-8801 (1990), MSX2 (1991), Sega Genesis and the Super NES. Players could assume one side of the Pacific Theater of Operations during World War II, acting as naval commander, organizing fleets, building new ships, appropriating supplies and fuel, and even engaging in diplomacy with other countries. The player can choose one of several World War Two battles to simulate, or could control the entire Pacific campaign well before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Air warfare was a major component in all theaters of World War II, and, together with anti-aircraft warfare, consumed a large fraction of the industrial output of the major powers. Germany and Japan depended on air forces that were closely integrated with land and naval forces; the Axis powers downplayed the advantage of fleets of strategic bombers, and were late in appreciating the need to defend against Allied strategic bombing. By contrast, Britain and the United States took an approach that greatly emphasised strategic bombing, and tactical control of the battlefield by air, as well as adequate air defences. Both Britain and the U.S. built substantially larger strategic forces of large, long-range bombers. Simultaneously, they built tactical air forces that could win air superiority over the battlefields, thereby giving vital assistance to ground troops. The U.S. and Royal Navy also built a powerful naval-air component based on aircraft carriers, as did the Japanese; these played the central role in the war at sea.
Axis & Allies: Europe 1940 is a 2010 board wargame simulating the European Theatre of World War II at the strategic level.
Axis & Allies: World War I 1914 is a war and strategy board wargame in the Axis and Allies series created by Larry Harris and published by Avalon Hill. Unlike the other games in the Axis and Allies series, it focuses on World War I, specifically the European, African, and Near East theaters.
Naval historians such as Evan Mawdsley, Richard Overy, and Craig Symonds concluded that World War II's decisive victories on land could not have been won without decisive victories at sea. Naval battles to keep shipping lanes open for combatant's movement of troops, guns, ammunition, tanks, warships, aircraft, raw materials, and food largely determined the outcome of land battles. Without the Allied victory in keeping shipping lanes open during the Battle of the Atlantic, Britain could not have fed her people or withstood Axis offensives in Europe and North Africa. Without Britain's survival and without Allied shipments of food and industrial equipment to the Soviet Union, her military and economic power would likely not have rebounded in time for Russian soldiers to prevail at Stalingrad and Kursk.
