If you’re going to use the US as your trading country, then make sure you have a good transport system in place. Get a 4x4 going on. Four transports from Ecan to UK, and UK to EEU (preferably) or Kar. And buy a fighter EVERY round so you can fly it to Russia. Do the same with the UK. Buy a fighter every round and fly it to Russia. Get a good fighter cover going, have Russia buy infantry out the wazoo (and an armour every now and then) and continually wear Germany down.
France Defence by Germany
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Per several games, I believe the key to defence France is not to put great deal of units in France, but instead to remain plenty units at Germany and Sorthern Euroup, and put just enough units in France. The art is to make the allies, British or U.S., could just barely land on France, with losing pretty much units in the amphibious attack, and remaining pretty little units after landing to allow Germany take back France by the units at Germany and France. And not putting units at France gives Germany another flexibility, that is, if allies does not attack France, the units at Germany and S.E can move east to attack Soviet.
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I think it is not possible to leave few units in France in order to save units and at the same time inflict heavy losses to UK and USA when they land there.
IMHO there are only two solutions: defend france in force having there enough units to defeat the landing of UK and USA or leave totally empty France with strong army in Germany and Southern Europe.
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I think it is not possible to leave few units in France in order to save units and at the same time inflict heavy losses to UK and USA when they land there.
IMHO there are only two solutions: defend france in force having there enough units to defeat the landing of UK and USA or leave totally empty France with strong army in Germany and Southern Europe.
When U.S. or U.K. have four TRA or less, to leave 5-6 units (3 INF, 2 ARM) at France might work for consuming their effort of landing with reasonable cost. So that’s enforce the allies to accumelate TRA and slow down their speed. And during their accumelate TRA, try to use aircraft or sub to slow them further.
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You should probably stick with the approach that Field Marshall Rommel wanted, to have a strong defense network to break the Allies on the beach heads of France. If you don’t have enough units in Western Europe to repel the initial invasion, then you will have a hard time of throwing the US and UK back out of Europe. I had to deal with a strong UK/US invasion on Western Europe and I was able to hold the line, as I had been stacking units there since turn one, it was a phenominal difference.
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You should probably stick with the approach that Field Marshall Rommel wanted, to have a strong defense network to break the Allies on the beach heads of France. If you don’t have enough units in Western Europe to repel the initial invasion, then you will have a hard time of throwing the US and UK back out of Europe. I had to deal with a strong UK/US invasion on Western Europe and I was able to hold the line, as I had been stacking units there since turn one, it was a phenominal difference.
Yes. But I think putting overly strong defense on France has two shortcomings. 1) You will have less force on the east line, so it will be more difficult to conquer Soviet. 2) The U.S. and U.K. will give up to attack France, but turn to Africa-Cacaus and Norway, and because of 1) that will make Germany on the east more difficult.
I think it is important to make France an IPC consumer of the allies, rather than simply an unbreakable fort. To put units the same as the number of TRAs U.K. or U.S. have in total might be a sweet point. That will make the allies never hold France one round.
One dangerous thing is that U.S. may land fighter and units after a successful U.K. attack. But I think it does not occur early or often because U.S. need two rounds to move their units to France and a pure fighter units is just a poor idea for defense. And when U.S. is ready to do so, put a little more units their. The key is to avoid unncessary unit increase in France. When the allies do not buy TRA or the U.S. do not stack a lot aircrafts on U.K., don’t make more German IPC idle on the France.
Just some though, maybe need more game to practice. :-)
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As a general rule…
If the game is a traditional KGF, Germany will need to send 2 INF per turn to Western, plus an additional 2 INF for every unit they pull out (the 2 ARM from start, and the FIGs that land there on G1 after attacking the SZ13 BB.This will generally keep pace with the Allied transport buildup, especially UK’s, for several turns. And with the AA gun present, it generally makes the UK player hesitant to risk their FIGs on an early landing in Western.
Once the Allies can 1-2 strike you with UK and USA with 8 TRN’s, then you are going to need some anchors for your INF stack… a couple of ARM and a FIG or 2 is ideal.
Lastly, if Germany does allow Western to fall to the UK, they will almost certainly have another 8 US ground forces (minimum) and several USA FIGs land in Western… making the Germans spend their INF as 1’s to re-capture Western and stranding the German ARM away from Berlin.
Ultimately, you want to get up to 15 INF plus anchors and AA in Western in about 6 turns. You may need to pick this up if the Allies ignore Africa because that means they are going for the SHORT game of “just throw everything at Germany as fast as possible before they can build up” strat, which is an EARLY grab of Western (Turn 3 or so)
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I agree with Switch.
If allied are focusing on KGF, Germany have to play defense. Leaving few units that may be safely chopped away by the allies is not a viable solution. -
I actually like this tactic.
I view the the defense of WE as a luxury rather than necessity. If I can get away with a similar plan to what Switch suggests I’ll do that, but often times I really think that too much early defense or consistant heavy defense can stifle the threat on Russia.
I like my eary defense to be as few inf as possible with all my ftrs and arm because they have the mobility to threaten Cauc with one Non-com to EE.
As Germany if I have to choose between stacking EE or WE, I’d prefer to stack EE and keep the UK/US seperated from Russia.
At some point (between rds 4-8), I’ll abandon WE moving all inf (~10) to Ger or SE while the armor go to EE. With a placement of 10 more inf on Ger plus potentially leaving a few more inf behind in Ger while moving the rest to EE you can easily have a force of 25-30 inf + 10-15 arm (from EE) + ftrs to threaten a heavy Allied landing while you maintain a heavy push on Ukr (or Kar/Cauc).
So essentially what happens is you end up trading WE with 2-3 inf + ftrs/bom instead of having 10, 12, 14, etc inf + planes sitting there while the Allies stack Kar and box you in.
Now if you are doing extremely well in Afr or Japan is having a great game you have the ability to stack as long as you can still maintain pressure on Russia, but once it is clear the Allies are over running Afr and Germany’s income will be stuck in the 35-39 range it just becomes too costly to try and defend everything while still advancing in the East.
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In fact I think that there are only two options: strong defense able to win against the 1-2 from UK/USA or vacate WE, carryng away also the AAG i norder to trade france each round with inf and fig.
An intermediate solution leaving anough inf to inflict damage to the allies and then counterattack is not profitable for Germany.I use usually this strategies in my Revised boardgame matches with my friends.
The real challenge is when to switch from strong defense in France to the elastic defense trading Franc each turn. If the change of stance is performed too early is an advantage for UK. If the change is performed too late the army in France may be chopped away before having the possibility to retreat.
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A further complication on calculating the required German defense of France vs the UK 1 - US 2. Do Germans need to count the ‘US 2’ as one normal transport wave (say 4 transports), or two cumulated waves (if US redirects the ‘shuck’ from Africa) with a pause next turn ? It resumes to the question: would US dare that ? or have interest ?
Also, if US shuttles to Africa, is it well for Germany to defend Italy with full force to hold it, or a similar wait and counterattack policy ?
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