Defending France

[sapper32]

Hi all have just bought this game and started as Allies with a slight advantage in my favour,Poland was attacked and fell then Axis turned on France and the low countries,Holland didnt last long Belgium a bit longer then i held onto France with the help of 3 British corps until Italy joined the war,Italy deployed an Armd corps and an Inf corps to the battle in northern France although i still held for a while the Pzr corps broke through and raced for Paris splitting my forces in half then taking Paris,unfortunatly the 3 British corps where stranded and destroyed when the French surrendered,has anyone held France or is it a forgone conclusion that France will fall and you should keep your British units safe for future operations.

Regards Ian

[Wolfe1759]

I'm fairly new to the game myself but I tend to expect that the Fall of France is a forgone conclusion. It is more a case of how long it takes the Axis to do this and at what cost. If I was to deploy an allied BEF in France it would be generally in the expectation that it will be destroyed but at the same time will aid in creating significant problems for the Axis forces, though I would still see the deployment of a BEF as the exception rather than the rule.

I'd be interested to see if more experienced players have a different view though.

PS I've found that the Fall of France makes a good PBEM mini -scenario with a 1940 start and the first player in a mirrored game to take France/Belgium/Holland winning.

[wick]

I had 2 Canadian and 2 British helping to defend France but mainly as a reserve force, When Germany was attacking Poland I launched a French attack toward Frankfurt and took it.... when the Germans finished off Poland they came to retake Frankfurt I managed to hold it for 4 turns before retreating back to the Maginot line, the whole time the BEF was in reserve, France finally fell in February of 41 I had managed to save one Canadian (Badly Mauld) and one British Corps. The Germans where in bad shape when the attacked the Russians that summer.

Wick

[sapper32]

Thanks for the replies guys seems the trick is to hurt the Axis as much as possible before Paris falls,i was suprised to see the French Army surrender as soon as Paris fell it gives you no time to pull the BEF out,think i will pull them out as Axis near Paris in future games.

Regards Ian

[Dion]

[font="times new roman"]As the Allies I too use the strategy of just trying to disrupt the Axis in the early part of the war, just trying to inflict as much damage as possible. I'm currently playing a 1939 campaign, and this strategy is working real well for me, in-fact it's going better than planned. Since this was my opponents second game I figured I would produce as much french and British infantry as possible, and send everything to the french front while leaving only a corp. or two in England. This was a gamble, because if my english forces in France would have been destroyed England would have been wide open for invasion. I took a lot of causalities but so did he. Luckily, in the process I knocked out his navy, so now I'm doing so good that I have a corp. or two in Germany. I even assaulted Berlin twice, I took Rome, and all in 1940! But after the gains I make he keeps pushing me back, so basically I can't get much further than the Ardennes forest, as those Panzer corps are tough to crack and they keep getting tougher. It's late '41 now and the USSR has just entered the war, so now it's just a matter of time. I find using this strategy is the best method for victory when playing as the Allies, because the USSR and/or the USA should be able to fix any Allied disasters. [/font]