1939 Scenario and Loss of England

[kennonlightfoot]

The general question is "Is the 1939 Scenario unplayable?"
Should it just be skipped and all games started at 1940?

Reason is it doesn't look like the British can prevent the German from conquering England in 1940. This puts England virtually out of the war. It's production is so low after that it can't even maintain the remaining units. This makes German/Italian conquest of the whole Mediterranean a certainty. It usually leads to Spain and Portugal coming in as Axis allies which lets them take Gibraltar closing off the Mediterranean to US invasion later. It also give them a whole lot of expendable allied units to throw at the US. With no viable British to fight until US enters in March 1941 they can run wild in all of Europe. It looks like Yugoslavia also goes Axis so they don't have the coupe to worry about. Air power based out of England will shut down all convoys to Russia.

There doesn't seem to be any negative to Germany not invading England as soon as France falls.
Weather may work against a quick conquest but once done, Germany can't be defeated. US by itself just won't produce enough units fast enough to save Russian.

The developers may fix this but I haven't heard anything coming soon that will.

[AlbertN]

I believe you are talking of the game against me - and I've to play Allies to experiment with something about defending UK.
BUT I do agree there are 4 main problems - that go both ways anyhow:

A) How easy is to 'bait' planes to bomb meaningless targets before the real invasion comes. (The Allies can do exactly the same later on anyhow and it pairs up to the next problem)
B) Supreme projection of invading power. (Read as, invasion range is -way- too long).
C) CVs rule surpreme - if a CV was sent in range of LBA planes, its Gladiators or whatever would have hardly managed to fend off waves of LBA force. (This is definitely pro-Allies and not related to UK invasion but subsequent ones)
D) Fighter baiting (Works both ways, as the Allies will do precisely the same later on). Same as bombers, fighters can be baited to fight for some minor bombing missions that are non relevant, get unable to fly anymore and cannot intercept what is meaningful (read: Paradrop). Twice so if fighters are parked in the open, and the Para drops on them and moves, and sends 2 UK fighters in the production queue. But how is that a problem? Simple, German fighters have 6 range so could not cover a 8-ranged paradrop. Bomb away some troops halfway, get British fighters come in, eat whichever Luftwaffe loss you are to take and then drop safely once you see the enemy airplanes don't come anymore to intercept. Then yes, the RAF just gets paradropped on its head, and their fighters are grounded.

But by my own experience, Russia is safe and sound (given atm Allies can send troops there but I do not think that was the problem more like their super armoured armada - that they can produce not depending on Axis invasion of UK)
And the Allies could otherwise merrily invade anywhere they like including retake UK by late '41 with the forces that are there in Russia.
My opponent does not seem crippled at all, actually stronger, by the seizing of UK by Axis hands, with the Allies spearheading an offensive in Russia -AND- being already back in the Middle East to deny Axis the oil.

Given, main difference I feel is that my opponent in that game packed up and left UK as soon as possible once the situation was compromised, salvaging a bucket of UK units which now are in Russia.

Historically there were reasons if the Allies arrived in Tunisia first, and then invaded Sicily and Sardinia. Same was that from UK they invaded Normandy. Air cover was the key. Sure they could have invaded Norway but they'd have risked a brutal reaction of the Luftwaffe - Torch was surely out of air cover, but Vichy France air was the opposer.
Right now I can just send 2 DDs to soak whichever air attacks are there, LBA planes run out of actions / organization as they activate, and dang, then I can invade.

But the same is if let's say Axis has Spain (conquered or else) or even Bordeaux - they have 1 plane squadron there (Which mirrors a large amount of planes).
Allies send in 1 DD, plane goes! Another DD, plane goes again. Dang, out of actions. And at worst the DD gets damaged, maybe sunk but... you know, it's a Patrol Group, nothing really 'omg!'.
And then the invasion happen.
As it is now, air cover to protect shores can be very redundant.

At same point I can say there are many type of business that right now may be wrong - like the whole Royal Navy and Marine National (French navy) raiding the Nordic Iron Ore line and litterally shutting down a hefty chunk a turn of German production (as Germany -must- shut down the convoy pipeline).

Given I do not what the UK produces but I believe as of now UK cannot really afford to send a BEF (or better, they can send a BEF - to be precise they cannot afford to lose it), need a good infantry spam at the start for a Mechanized Unit can invade (it has 4 action points against the 2 of an Infantry Corps; and more punch) and can easily dislodge a division in a port. Once the port falls, panzer pours in and it tends to turn into written history.

I am not sure if Mechanized units should be able to invade in fact. But before to rush to the repairs for that I feel the real issues are how Air Units live and operate in the game.

I've achieved Sea Lion in another game - but there the British player too has exhausted himself in France with a rather robust expeditionary force of which less than half made it out alive.

What I've seen is that the Brits tend not to use the Royal Navy adequately to cover northern invasion spots out of Luftwaffe range. (Park ships out in the sea to intercept enemy vessels coming) If the Royal Navy sits in ports or raid the North Iron Ore they're not defending the homeland. To just sail out to cut port supply -after- the invasion happens is relative. (Count hexes, stick 10 hexes away from French / Benelux coast and you're fine. If KM comes, eat them).
In that situation a single division in northern zones is more than adequate per port. (Germany ought not to risk a Mech to land up there out of air cover)
Like the Soviets protect their Black Sea ports by keeping their fleet out in night movement mode too to avoid planes (That's what my opponent is doing in the same game where Axis has all of that).

Some just leave ports open like Edinbourgh. It can be invaded slightly south and in good weather one marches in. Supply source ensured!

Then UK needs infantry, infantry, infantry. I do not know which production is there in people spirals but when I got to play Allies I just churn out infantry at the start. To have to the relevant southern ports.

[kennonlightfoot]

One of the reasons I played the Allies was to see what happened when England was invaded. Which is why I haven't quit yet. I want to see what happens when America comes in. But here is what I have found so far.

Britain isn't capable of stopping an invasion regardless of what they do. Mostly because they can't stop a landing cross channel. The German's have enough air power to reduce one port enough for its immediate capture regardless of what the British do with planes. They might be able to delay it a turn or two by throwing away their air and fleets.

Problems for Britain are:

They have only 5 full Corps, 2 mediocre Corps, 4 divisions, 2 HQ's by the about May. Add to this maybe 2 Canadian divisions.
They have to garrison 14 ports to prevent Germans from just walking in unopposed. (I didn't count Scapa Flow in this)
This means they have no counter attack ability since that would leave ports open in their rear. When the German's land they will take out one of the Full Corps in the process leaving the British only enough combat units to continue garrisoning all the remaining ports.

The Germans produce Landing craft faster than even the US can. They can produce an average to 2 Landing every other month so by May have over 12 sets giving them the ability to make multiple landing (4-5 Corps). This means the British have to continue garrisoning Ports after an invasion lands. If they react with enough force to have the slightest affect on the Germans they will open themselves for multiple invasions in their rear.

Unless the British pull back all their forces in the Middle East they don't have enough to hold England. Their air power is no match. If they hold it back to save it the Germans have overwhelming force for invasion along the channel. If they commit it, it is wiped out quickly. Only the navy is superior but because of the way the navy system works, it can't stop invasions unless positioned where the invasion will occur. Which means the German airforce will quickly wipe out the navy.

What I haven't tested since I will have to start another game to do it, is if there is anyway for the navy to help the situation. I was hoping someone else had tested some useable tactics for the navy.

If the navy can't be a game changer, it looks like the British only hope is bad weather. The Germans can't invade until France falls since French navy and airppower would prevent it or make it very costly.

There other choice is to not even try to hold England. Withdraw to Scotland and form a solid defensive line there.

Total withdrawal isn't really an option. Once England falls the British don't have enough production points or population to even maintain their units.

For the German there doesn't seem to be any negatives to taking England.
Knocking out Britain's production and land units more than offsets any gain the US and Russia have.
It looks like Spain, Portugal and Yugoslavia all go Axis which should occupy the USA for some time trying to clean up that mess. It also assures the German can take Gibraltar and close the Mediterranean off. Freeing up more Italian troops to use to delay the USA.

[AlbertN]

Portugal has been invaded - not aligned.
Spain goes Axis if UK loses some of their cities.
Yugoslavia is due to Greece conquest before coup date.

Gibraltar is not as important here as Allies can pratically land in Marocco, march in up to Oran and then embark in Oran to invade inside the Med. Sure they cannot bring in fighting ships, but is that really relevant?
(That because there is absolutely no 'check' if ships can legitimately get there. It is the same for the Axis in the Black Sea tbh - there should be some romanian shipping that can be used but that Italy or Germany can use their default shipping in the Black Sea is wrong as well).

Alas that is the case with an abstraction of transport points per turn.

I admit in our game - right now I do not think the way Soviets are deployed will do any good to you though. Just a heads up but it's free to be experimented!

[kennonlightfoot]

I haven't really paid much attention to the Soviets. I was more looking to see what affect all this has on the USA. Right now it doesn't look like the USA comes in early so Russia should be a cake walk. I haven't played against anything but the AI so far so have no real Russian strategy since just about anything works against the AI.

I would like to start a second game as Allies against you to see to test alternate strategies for British. It would probably be a short game since I don't need to play it any further than conquest of England.

If okay with you let me know. I will put a challenge out there with a password of "Test".

[AlbertN]

Point is Sealion is never decided beforehand - at least from my viewpoint - but can be done depending on how the deployment of UK is, how UK has played, etc.
So I am far from sure it would duplicate the same game in the end of the day, as with a different UK gameplay I could simply elect to not invade at all, since there are included risks (and usually the cost of the Kriegsmarine whole).

And USA is already in the Allies. It just needs to declare war in that game!

I've already 3 games going on so I am not confident to add a 4th right now even if it's short. I'd suggest you to put the game up and see who joins - and warmly suggesting you do the Italian Option map, it's more fair on the Axis (or heck, try Axis yourself!)

[kennonlightfoot]

Missed the part about USA can declare war. I thought it had to come in by event like the 1941 Dec one.

I agree the USA player can invade anywhere but I don't think that will have much affect on the German player. The UK is still out of the war for all practical purposes until England is retaken. It has no manpower or production to rebuild anything. The USA player can slowly take back countries but that doesn't trigger allied units returning. Just removes German allies but they will probably fight to the last man before that happens. US production didn't really improve much from higher economy multiplier so they really don't have a large enough force to be a serious threat. I think Russia will be knocked out of the war long before the US becomes a serious threat to Germany.

Things I wanted to look at was whether the Navy could help releave the army in defending against invasions. Does stationing a fleet in a port do anything against invasions? Can they block in entry to those ports which have limited hexes that can be used for invasion? Things like that.

But I do think the Germans can't be stopped if they want to invade. They can do it with just brute force. The question is whether their is any negative result from this serious enough to deter invasion as a choice?

It would help if this game gave better feedback how defensive battles played out. All you see is the result as the defender. The Attacker has all kind of information to work with.

[AlbertN]

USA can just focus to stage back invasion of UK tbh - that's what I'd have done if I was my opponent in the other PBEM game but he favored to do else.
Axis really would struggle to defend UK -and- also do Barbarossa in '41. But in Warplan a Barbarossa '42 in my eyes is not really doable. (Or well... Soviets just have more armour and mechanized all around the place PLUS the infantry armies.)

[AlbertN]

Pretty sure in fact by how the game is right now - the Allies only have to gain by having UK taken by the Axis.
It brings USA in way quicker, with better production than the Brits and better troops (their infantries move 6 and pack more punch); and pratically by mid'42 UK is back in their hands with lots of Axis troops dead and mauled there.

So it's actually rewarding for the Allies to lose UK. Which is a paradox.

[gwgardner]

Chocolino successfully invaded my UK last game we played, but this time I have tried different things. Including having 4 interceptor squadrons upgraded to 1941 tech, two tac bombers, 1 strat bomber (started the game before Alvaro converted that to a tac bomber). Three carrier task forces, surface ships - all of which will be committed to foil an invasion. I don't know if Chocolino will try to invade this time around, due to his rather slow invasion of France, but if he does I'll have something more waiting for him.

The Canadians have sent over a corps to help. All ports garrisoned.

[Michael T]

I think a full on defense of the UK stands a good chance of preventing a serious Sealion. IMO it depends on how much each side is prepared to risk. A weak defence of the UK risks invasion, even invites it. A serious Sealion that fails probably means defeat for Germany.

[AlbertN]

I think as well UK can well fend off a Sealion with adequate focus and builds - my point is that even if SeaLion is successful, Axis is punished for that by having Super-USA in the war so early, that UK is taken back by mid'41 unless Germany wants to compromise Barbarossa by diverting large assets to protect UK.

To take UK should be a challenge and difficult (unless the UK player goes offensive elsewhere or overloads Middle East or loses troops in France - but the latter is rare if the Allied player knows what he is doing), but rewarding. VPs are not a reward, since in my experience Axis powers get conquered.

[AlbertN]

Just going to attach a screenie of my game with Kennon.

It's quite simple - USA and UK can easily retake UK not even 1 year after UK has fallen.

In 1940 Axis is about to finish France / begin Sealion at best. I hope Alvaro will fix that because atm that's another not very viable strategy.

As the game goes it is a strict railroad of France '40, Russia '41.
Close the Med strategy is not viable (Allies can just easily secure the Middle East; Spain is just better to be kept neutral than to be invaded and cannot be aligned if not via invading UK).
If Axis even invades UK, USA kicks in so early that it's just a drawback instead of an Axis amazing feat!

Obviously Axis could just to play Sitzkrieg instead - but that will make an interesting game?

[tyronec]

I tend to agree, cannot see any other viable strategy for Axis unless the Allies make a mistake somewhere and there is a chance for an easy invasion against the Middle East or whatever.
Maybe someone can prove us wrong, hope so....

[kennonlightfoot]

I disagree with some of the conclusions above.

Yes the US comes in earlier. But it's production is only slightly improved while all of the UK production is lost. We haven't gotten to the point of retaking England so I don't know what will return for the UK at that time. But the lost UK production is probably ten times what the US gained.

The collapse of the UK leaves the Mediterranean undefended. Which allows the Italians to conquer it with little loss. The few UK units left can't rebuild their loses so are quickly overrun. With the addition of the Spanish, Gibraltar falls cutting off the Mediterranean so it doesn't have to be defended. Italy like wise doesn't have to be defended. This releases a large number of units for use elsewhere.

The US gets to build a little quicker but Research isn't sped up. The Units they build are of poor quality and not even a good match against Italian units. It took the US forces two turns and all their landing craft to get enough units into Ireland to try to take a port. Luckily the Axis withdrew them by sea I guess to save them. It was questionable whether I had enough US units to take the port.

As to defending the UK from invasion. I am not sure its possible. There were some strategies I want to test but right now I have no reason to think they would work. The basic problem is when France falls, the UK has only enough units to put one in each port which is required to prevent Germans from just landing in the port and taking it without a fight. This assumes no units were lost in France. The UK production for most of the first year is entirely used up bringing existing units up to full strength. By April 12 turn they have only accumulated 563 production points which is enough to put two Corps in production which won't be available until about May/Jun. To late unless the Axis player has unusually bad luck with weather.

To illustrate the difference between Axis and US for invasions:

In May 40 the Axis player usually has a couple of 16 or higher attack units. Without building any additional air he can drop that unit adjacent to Dover. Use air to reduce even the strongest UK unit to about a 3. Then take the port in one attack and advance slightly to give himself room for more units to enter. The UK player still has to garrison all its ports since they still have to prevent more landings directly in ports. At most they can get a couple of big Corps over to block the Axis. Axis player they just does another air power + armor wipe out of a UK units. Repeats until UK withdraws north. UK is out of the game.

Compare this to US force in May 1941 trying to counter invade the UK. There biggest unit is around a 10. They initially have no airpower. They don't have enough strength for two of them to take a port garrisoned by a Axis minor. Which is why I had to go into Ireland first. I needed a base for concentrating a massive amount of airpower to compensate for the poor attack quality of US troops.

The US player also can't build enough landing craft to make a stronger landing. Because the game locks up the US shipyard capacity building a BB well into 1941. Germany can produce landing craft faster than the US.

There are still some potential tactics for the UK to try but I don't see any of them stopping a brute force attack across the channel unless some really lucky die rolls can do it. Right now it looks like bad weather is the biggest threat to the Axis Sealion.

[AlbertN]

Point is, it's summer '41.

US should not be even remotely able to field troops in that mass, or plan invasions in Summer '41.

I admit I am actually curious to know how much manpower gains UK without England - to have an idea. (Think you need the latest beta to see that though).

[kennonlightfoot]

I didn't do a comparison but it is only a slight production gain through the multiplier factor. The gain is significant compared to the loss of all British production. British also can't produce ships with out England. But the biggest loss is the higher quality British Units. The US units aren't all that good even in 42. They relay more on not having to fight anything but Italian units.

I suspect a small German mobile force in England can destroy any US landing expect in Scotland which is mostly a weak distraction.

The only real hope for British holding England is if they can somehow use their superior navy to offset their weak forces. Unfortunately, it takes a lot of games to test what does and does not work since the AI never invades.

Regardless, the side effect of Britain being so vulnerable is a weak defense of Africa and Egypt.

[AlbertN]

Aren't US 50 experience units like the Brits?
Or am I wrong?

Must check out but I think they're at same level - with USA being stronger with 1 more action point and 1 tank point per INF.

[Twotribes]

I don't think is is 50 percent seems to me they start lower.

[Journier]

Ehhh I think they start lower and come up in 1942 via event