What do you do when…Germany fails to take France

A lot of Axis players do this, but I see it as a good development if I’m allies. Any left over French units could be annoying in the early rounds. You have to be sure you can counter France if they take it and get the bonus infantry.

Axis won’t get the +2. Just holding Normandy for 3 turns is 2 more infantry. Axis will need a larger force in France than otherwise to prevent Allies from getting a foothold because USA will be able land their planes in Normandy right off the bat. If you don’t contest the allied landing in Normandy, Allies will be able to trade for Southern France.

A combined Italian-German stack in Normandy is strategically preferable to a stack in France, provided you have the manpower.

If USA could concentrate all its resources on the Atlantic front it would be a different story. But dual victory conditions means that if USA invests enough to make Germany pay for taking Normandy, then they likely didn’t invest enough in the Pacific to stop Japan.

so by uk 6, they need 7+ fighters in Moscow to stay comfy, and if they can do that, then the Germans must wait till G9 to have a shot due to the whole 12 stack coming in on R7

@simon33 I mostly agree. I’m counting the 2 IPCs from west India, too – if you can take and hold India, you can probably also get west india.

Even better, once your fleet stages to 92, if the US is at war, they have no choice but to prepare to be attacked.  That isn’t necessarily a good direction to go for the Axis (bc they can kill your fleet pretty easily if you invade from that direction), but it forces the US to place at least something there to stop you, and this is especially good if they did the heavy Pacific buys on US 1 and 2 because they may have as little as one combat ship, one transport, and a few men defending Washington.  They are hiding behind that peace–however the only way you could actually deceive them might be if Germany was not at war on G3, but Japan then declared war on J3.    Nonetheless, any competent player would still recognize the threat of being at war in the atlantic though the US is often not prepared for the Atlantic side of the war to begin.

Like the Sealowe thing, its better to threaten it then it is to actually try and execute this plan because the Allies still have to prepare for anything that you could potentially do, whether you have the odds to do it or not.

As a side note, I think it is really interesting that at the early war conferences, the US agreed with UK USSR that the Germans were the greater threat, and all agreed in principle that they would focus the majority of their economic power against the European Axis first.  But, post war analysis has shown that (probably because of the difficulty of attacking occupied Europe without overwhelming force, but also possibly tending to kill the weaker dragon first/getting revenge) the large majority of the US effort up until Normandy was actually directed at Japan.

I pretty much always leave the Med to Italy. Even if Germany takes S. France, it usually only uses the IC there for making infantry to protect the Atlantic coast, or maybe a couple of subs to help Italy clear out the Med right at first.
Maybe one of those German infantry will go down, catch a ride on an Italian transport and land in Egypt for that German NO there, but this only happens if Italy is doing very well down there and that usually only happens if the Germans are successful at Sealion so UK is pretty much out of the European theater. Also, the US is usually busy in the Pacific and not doing much in the Atlantic.
So, the Germans getting the “Land Unit in Egypt” NO is fairly rare.
So in our games, Germany has little to no involvement in the Med.  They are either busy attacking England or going after Russia. Either of those takes too much financial commitment.

SZ 106 2SS
SZ 111 SS, 2 Bombers, BB, FTR, Tac (can divert 1 Bomber to 109 to help prevent scramble)
SZ 109 2SS, 2FTR, 2TAC
Normandy: Art/Inf/Tac
Yugo: S. Germany units and Romania FTR (so it can go to S. Italy)
NCM same
All available mechs/tanks, and remaining inf at France with Tac/FTR

Why risk S. France with 3 tanks? Save S. France for IT. 
Yugo is an overkill.  Why 9inf in needed for support (where are the other 3 coming from, and why isn’t 6 from S. Germany enough)?
I was taught that it’s better to eliminate the DDs to help choke off UK with your SS(hence why I left 110 open). Yes, I know the 110 ships run like hell…
70IPCs is plenty of cash for 10art,7mech.
While I know risking a plane to France’s AA is a risk, I like a quick battle so maybe I don’t have to dig into arts when I lose all my inf (trying to avoid a 2nd RD resistance)

I’m by no means an expert an global, it’s just something I used/learn.

I know CJenn’s tactic. � It’s just another variation of what we’ve had since the summer of 2010. �

I think hitting 109, 111, 112, and 106 but not 110 and 91 is more corriganbp’s tactic.  CJenn does it too now, but I think she used to hit SZ110 instead of 109 until corriganbp convinced her 109 was better.

If I had to leave 1 alone, it would be sz111, as those ships can’t get away from you on turn 2.

The only reason to leave one of the UK BBs alone is so you can do 109.  I don’t think you can do both 109 and 110 (along with 112 and 106 heavy) due to UK scramble options.  They, with France, can scramble 3 fighters to 110 or 4 to 109.  They can’t do both scrambles at the same time of course, but as Germany you have to cover for both and I don’t think they have enough air to do so, at least not without skimping a bit in another battle.

No, I don’t like the idea of allowing the Allies to have 3 complexes in W. Europe.  Especially ones they don’t have to build.  A very common tactic for me is to abandon France to the Allies.  Let them have it and lose all their control in Africa and French Indo China, lose their complexes and then move back in.