No impact to destroying or blocking the BEF?

[robertm73]

So if take the northern port towns of Dunkirk and the surround area before Paris falls, almost always the AI have the BEF run away. Seems weird there is no way to destroy it or no event is triggered if they escape back to England.


S

[Goodmongo]

There are other ports in France. And even in real life many UK units left from Brest and other ports on the west coast.

[robertm73]

No disagreeing. But it should affect the french morale if they leave at a minimum.

[Malor]

I've played one game where I used the BEF in active defense and watched them get killed as fast as the French and I've played once where I used them defend the Brittany ports. Once it looked like that Paris would fall, I evacuated them all via transport with most units including the HQ going to Egypt. I moved one to Gibraltar and moved it's garrison back to the UK. Do this before the subs come hunting and it is relatively safe to move without escort. If attempting the second evauation option, make sure you keep plenty of UK MPPs available to purchase the transport/operate actions for all units. I read in another thread where the BEF was lost because the player used them up and then could not evacuate fast enough and watched the unit be caught and destroyed.

I don't think it makes sense to punish French morale since they are going to surrender soon anyway. I don't think there is a way to prevent it. You can delay it, but if you do delay it too much, I think you have broken the AI and it will struggle the rest of game to get back on schedule. While this might be a fun "what-if", playing the game beyond that point probably will not be much fun because Barbarossa will be delayed and the Axis will probably never do much in Russia.

Malor

[BillRunacre]

There are bonuses/penalties to French morale based on the presence or absence of British units. They aren't massive but they do mean that they will have a chance of fighting on longer if the British are present, not just for their combat skills but also because of the effect on French morale.