Spain as a staging area

Yes, that is one of the two preferred attack paths for taking Germany out of the game.  The other, of course, being reinforcing Karelia until you can push forward.

This was the path of my last 2 allied victories.

2-3 rounds to build up the navy, take F/N and get an initial batch of reinforcemtents towards Kar.

Spainish front opened on the next round by GBR, USA reinforces w/inf+arm+ftr.

Ger falls within 4 rounds… in one case, the naval invasion took Ger the next round.

As the allies I liked to mass troops in Gibraltar.  If I remember correctly that you must pay 3 IPC’s to cross a nutral country.  Depending on the Axis player you may create an effective cold war to take pressure off of Russia.

-LT04

Doesn’t the Caspian sub group have a paper on this?  I think it was called the Franco strategy?

You don’t need any “paper” Its too simple to need it. The idea is German tanks in EE cant attack you in Spain because its three moves away, so if they want to try it, the Soviets take EE and its game over, So the staging against Spain is the buildup (not England) and you continually land men until you can take France easy and have no fear from EE tanks rolling in, unless the German player is an idiot and will exchange his tanks for your infantry.

Once you got enough in Spain and ready to jump into France, the wise German player will either have enough to hit Karelia and try to end the game by a drive on Moscow, or abandon EE and Bunker in Germany and strike against you in France. If he does the second the Soviet player pours all his might in EE and attacks Germany if Germany goes against France or Spain. If Germany cant do either, then both sides squeeze Germany to 10 IPC and start going after Japan.

@LT04:

Doesn’t the Caspian sub group have a paper on this?  I think it was called the Franco strategy?

It would be a bad name, because Franco was aligned with Axis. Maybe Republican strategy? Or Juan III strategy?  :mrgreen:

Almost always a waste of time to go to Spain… Most of the time you can take WEU fairly ez if the threat is to big… So I pick WEU over Spain anyday…

but then EE tanks are in range and Germany just wipes off all these pieces in west Europe, then if Soviets hit EE, Germany just takes that out too. The only thing is Soviets now can hit EE light and make it into a new buffer with back and forth with Germany, but now you lose the Franco option as well, because German tanks are in Germany and can reach Spain, so NOW you have to take both spain and France and then use france as bait to hold Spain with two full turns of reinforcements. Thats alot of lost tempo–-so it is easier to just land in Spain and follow up in France only after Spain cannot fall.

True

I think you could make this work if you did the following: (keep in mind I am using the term “turn” loosely.  Think of it more in terms of once the US has purchased its attacking force and is now moving in.)

Turn 1: US buys only INF.  US places US ARM in E Canada onto Transports off the coast.  US Transports move to Gibraltar and unload. US places FTR’s on Gibraltar

Turn 2: US has Transports return to E Canada. US has INF purchased from last turn move from DC to E Canada

Turn 3: US places INF onto transports sends transports to W Europe and unloads.  US has ARM from Gibraltar move through Spain (costing 3 IPC’s) to meet up with US INF in W Europe.

A lot of times I send less ARM by transport b/c I can fit more INF.  This way you can shuttle you support units before you send your bullet spunges.

Now one thing you may have to look out for is German ARM to bring the fight to you in Gibraltar making it a costly battle (@ 5 IPC per tank vs. 3 IPC per INF) but keep in mind that the Germans will loose just as much b/c they will have to bridge Spain also sacraficing an INF push.

If they do you will have to put your INF in Spain and meet your ARM and FTR’s there.  yeah you won’t get the IPC’s from W Europe but you did effectively take pressure off of Russia and also make a foothold in Europe for allied troops to mass in.

LT