How do you stop an invasion/reinforcement

[MorningDew]

So I am lost on how to stop an invasion and subsequent reinforcement. It seems ridiculous to me that Italy and Germany can pull this off (this is the turn after initial invasion) with British air in both Cypress and Egypt and naval units in eastern med, but it likely isn't ridiculous, it is probably stupidity on my end...at least I hope that is the case.

Air are set to intercept (full support), naval as well (not raiding).

Can anyone explain what kind of presence/setup the UK would need in the eastern med to stop this?

I am hopeful I am missing something because, unfortunately, if I cannot figure out how to stop this realistically (meaning I don't have to strip the entire UK of resources and have all my air and naval here), this just isn't enjoyable.

Please tell me I am missing something...

PS - on a different note, that ability to invade one Vichy area and not have any political repercussions, such as Vichy North Africa (or all of Vichy) joining the Allies, also doesn't feel right either.

[Harrybanana]

Without knowing exactly what happened it is difficult for me to comment. If as you say your bombers and fleets were properly set than each time an Axis fleet (including transports) is moved into a sea or partial sea hex of Syria (including a port) within your intercept range you should have a single chance at an intercept. My understanding is that if both an air and naval unit have a chance at an intercept than it is the air unit that makes the intercept attempt. So you would have to check the combats from your opponents turn to see if intercepts are being attempted for each enemy movement. The closer you are to the enemy fleets destination hex the more likely your chance of the intercept being successful. In my experience air units often fail to locate enemy fleets. But if your units are not even getting a chance at an interception than something is wrong.

Unfortunately, fleets and air units are generally ineffective at preventing an invasion. This is why it is essential that a player have a land unit in every single port. What I do as the Allied player is invade Syria myself as soon as France falls and garrison the ports (just like you did with Cyprus). Yes it uses up the UK's limited resources, but the alternative is what you are facing now.

While fleets and air units are generally ineffective at preventing an invasion, they are useful in perhaps containing it. By moving fleets, including subs in raider mode, next to ports you will hamper the supply it receives. This will make it difficult for the Axis player to maintain effectiveness and receive replacements. the closer your fleets are to the port the more supply they destroy. Of course, it is also exposing your fleets to potential air attack; so you may want some fighter cover.

As for an Axis invasion of Vichy Syria not having any political repercussions, the fact is that historically it was the UK that invaded Syria and Vichy France stayed neutral.

Oh yeah, was it Italy that invaded or Germany? If it was Italy then was the UK at war with Italy at the time of the invasion? If not, then you would not get an intercept chance. Which is why as the UK it is important that you DOW Italy as soon as France falls. This is something I often forget to do myself.

[MorningDew]

Thanks for the reply. They were at war. And appreciate the history reminder - I forgot the British invaded Vichy Syria.

I thought about this a lot last night.

I believe the challenge is caused by the ability to "soak off" the interceptions with very low risk. If a side simply moves a single fleet within intervention range (6 or 10 hexes for air, 5 for naval), but at maximum interception range at open sea, they soak up one interception that has a high probability of failure. Move it a single hex again, at maximum interception range, and you soak up another. Use three units in this setup at maximum range/open sea and all possible interceptions are soaked up on low probability (and useless) interceptions. You can then proceed to invade at will with impunity for the rest of the turn.

But I also understand that, for PBEM playability purposes, interception needs to be automated.

To me a "best" solution would be the ability to specify they type of interceptions a unit supports (i.e. only intercept if moving next to "these" land hexes and supply intervention). But that is a major change (maybe WP2?)? Also, maybe too much micromanagement.

Another idea was that the interception on uses an operation point IF the interception is successful. That would at least mean the "soak off", to be successful, needs to have high risk of damage.

But in thinking about it, I landed that, to require true air or sea superiority to invade (not just enough units to soak up a known number of attacks at low risk), the only thing that should stop an air or fleet from intercepting is if they are too low on strength or efficiency - i.e. they are not limited to two interceptions. In other words, they can intercept during a turn (maybe if they are setup as Full Support->naval) more than twice if strength/efficiency allows. This would make these "soak off" tactics significantly harder to figure out as I do I do not believe efficiency/strength are lost on a failed interception. And as noted, it would mean invasions require true air/sea support.

Those are some ideas, but perhaps there are good ways I do not understand with the current "rules" that would stop this. Very open to feedback and learning - as I said in the original post, I am hopeful the issue is my ignorance.

[AlvaroSousa]

So #1 I changed the damage to transport fleet in the current beta. I found the transported land units were taking too little damage.

#2 Generally you want your interception fleets as close to your coast as possible because interception is based on range.
#3 You don't have enough naval groups there. The Italians have a larger naval force than what is there. For the Atlantic all you need is 1-2 CVs for SS duty and a more battle group fleets at Scapa Flow than the Germans.
#4 You need to BUILD fleets. Patrol groups work just fine as you have the backbone of heavy ships that out number the Axis.
#5 I usually set two patrolling fleets rotating in the Eastern Med. I randomize their sizes of 2 naval groups to 6 naval groups so I have a strong force there. The intercepting forces are near the coast at Beirut
#6 I put a plane in Cyprus like you did and a garrison.
#7 It takes a lot of effort for the Axis to bust out in Libya because the supply stretch is quite a bit. Their best strategy is to invade behind. You don't need as many units early on to defend this area as you think. Your main focus is defending Syria from invasion.
#8 Even if the invasion is successful you should have parked 2 large fleets off of Beirut to prevent reinforcements and bust the supply lane before air could be transported in.
#9 Bomb the air Italian airfields to lower the effectiveness of planes so you can blockade the ports and mess with effectiveness recovery.
#10 If the Axis committed maximum effort in the area you will have a challenge. For example if they stages the Italian fleet off Rhodes then sent in all their ships. Yea it's going to be hard to stop them. Thus why you need a large fleet in the Med.

Strategies in WarPlan are different than other computer games of the type. It plays more like World in Flames where you have to protect sea zones.

[MorningDew]

Alvara - thanks for the information. A few other follow-up questions:

1. Same time frame, Germans have invaded the UK - don't have the fleet/air units to defend both the entire eastern coast of the UK with fleets close to the ports and the eastern med. If fleets need to be broken into smaller fleets to cover more territory, they leave themselves vulnerable. The Axis has an option to pickup fleets one-by-one.

Warplan isn't like WIF because a fleet only protects a small zone - I could have a single large fleet and a few air units protect the entire eastern med in WIF (Malta-Tripoli-Syria are a single zone in WIF - in Warplan, that is a width of 40 hexes - to cover that given the 5 hex interception I need 4 or more fleets).

Also, the "soak-off" tactic makes it fairly easy to eliminate any ability to really protect (as far as I can tell)

2. It is July 1940 in what I posted. The UK cannot build significant patrol groups due both to limited shipyards and production and build time by July 1940. I just ran a test where I spent nothing until I had the ability to build a patrol group. Spending on nothing else, it is Sept 29 before the UK can build the first Patrol Group. At that point all shipyards except 1 are completely used until April 1940 and you have 1 shipyard left. You can build one oiler at a time, which you often need to deal with raiders/subs. This also means the UK can not build any landing ships until June 1940 as they require 5 shipyards and only 1 remains. One could build new shipyards, but requires 400 days so it is 1941 before the first ones come online - not help.

So the statement "build fleets" does NOT match reality. With the shipyard limitations, only one patrol group can be build to impact this situation. and the next one would be available in mid 1941. All that is useless to impact the period of Axis activity.

[AlvaroSousa]

Well there was no date on the screen shot.

So in your case you have a Germany that seems to 100% focus on your situation. I did make a post somewhere on defending vs Sealion. Usually I start building naval groups when I feel I have enough to protect my assets in the UK and North Africa.

Of course, a-historical, if the Germans decide to put their full weight on the UK yes it will be tough. Defending the UK is possible but it is more about controlling the action then out right prevention. You can outright prevent an invasion but if the Germans plan right you can funnel them into one location and use armor to blast them off the beaches.

Now while any of this is not historical WarPlan isn't a historical simulation. It is wargame based on history so if the Germans want to go all out in the UK they should be allowed to. But this means that the USSR will be strong and the USA will come in earlier. I believe usually the UK will lose ~70% of their country when the USA arrives.

It's tough but challenging.

[MagicMissile]

ORIGINAL: AlvaroSousa

So #1 I changed the damage to transport fleet in the current beta. I found the transported land units were taking too little damage.

Thats really good [:)] I was going to write a post about it because I thought we were back a little bit to unsinkable transports. I am not sure how the damage is calculated but I think maybe 10% strength loss for each bomb strength hit or something like that could be reasonable.

/MM

[mwilcx001]

X

[mwilcx001]

Morning Dew.

I think that, as Alvaro suggests, it is more important to respond to an Invasion than intercept it.

Army - defend aggressively with whatever local units you have. Rail in larger size units. Counter attack early to reduce attacker effectiveness.
Air - get Air superiority units as close (safe) as possible. Move air Tactical units within range to attack ships and interdict any ports.
Navy - get as many Subs as you can off the invasion beach / port in Fleet mode. For the Brits, get a fleet next to the invasion beach / port ... 1 x CV / 2 x BB / 2 x CA / 2 x DD. The Brits can lose ships ... the Italians & Germans can't. Sink anything you can. To keep their supply going the Italians & Germans have to commit their naval units. Keep whacking these axis naval units and eventually they'll stop providing support ... and supply will simply stop. This will stop any invasion.

Apologies about my previous 'X' post. My 3 previous posts never got through. I did a test with 'X' ... and it went through!

[AlvaroSousa]

Often I hear players complain about they can't do this or can't prevent that.

Then a couple weeks later they realize a strategy

Then a couple weeks after that another strategy

Then I get an email that says "WarPlan is really deep in strategic decisions"

That's how I want to make all my games. A fair amount of them have what I call sequential planning. Build A, B, C in this order. Perform A, B, C in this order.
I want to give a grouping of small options that expand exponentially but none are necessarily more advantageous than the other. It's a matter of planning using the right resources at the correct time.

It's what happens when you have played poker for 14 years. Your mind restructures how it thinks and plans.