The Bad Neighbor Policy

[Courtenay]

It was easy to implement the Bad Neighbor Policy -- the invasion of South America by the US, starting with Argentina -- when using the American mini-map: Just build two MECHs and an ARM, move them to Brazil, and invade through Uruguay. Provide a lot of naval gunfire support and maybe a little air, and the odds were very good that you could take Buenos Aires in a surprise impulse. You also had to use some carriers to port strike the Argentinian navy, which would not have set up in Buenos Aires. After that, then go crush Chile. No other South American country worth invading has an army other than a MIL unit, so they presented no problem.

The large scale map has a swamp hex northwest of Buenos Aires that prevents the swift conquest of Argentina. What do people think is the minimum force required to take down Argentina, how long would it take, and is it worth it? The real prize, of course, are all the resources scattered throughout South America, not just Argentina.

[alexvand]

Is doing this really worth it? I've never even considered it.

With the new maps I could see lots of time wasted here, something that the Allies are in short supply of.

[Ur_Vile_WEdge]

I thought the allies lost a point for each minor on the American maps they attacked. Could be an old rule that they did away with though.

[Centuur]

ORIGINAL: Ur_Vile_WEdge

I thought the allies lost a point for each minor on the American maps they attacked. Could be an old rule that they did away with though.

From RAW:

Subtract 1 from an Allied major power’s total for each minor country
on the American map that it declared war on. Subtract 1 from the
USA’s total if the USA has declared that both Mexico and Brazil are
aligned with it (see 19.8).

I've never tested it, but it is included in MWIF according to RAC.

Only Buenos Aires is an objective hex which can be conquered in South America (Sao Paulo, Panama and Mexico City will become US by aligning the minor countries).
So this is a very damaging thing for the USA to do. It will mean that they will have to grab an awful lot of extra objective hexes to win...
Conquering Argentina can be done to grab the factory and the resource, together with the objective hex at no penalty (the objective hex covers the DoW). But with the unified map, you can't do this by a land attack in the surprise impulse. So you need more units and be prepared for a fight with the Argentinian navy.

Another option might be to DoW Chili first and try to get the Germans to align Argentina. But what if the Germans wait to align Argentina until the last possible moment (say the fifth or sixth impulse of the J/A 1945 turn so they get an objective extra with which they might win the game at that time)...

I don't know, but giving all this, I probably would lay low in South America as the US.