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I am bumping this into the general discussion box to see if I can get any insight from my fellow players / scenario designers.

I am currently revising my Cauldron-1990 scenario and adding some content that doesn't directly follow the narrative of the book.

My question is:

Do you think the French would send out a carrier group (i.e. the Foch) to intercept US carrier battle fleets moving towards the North Sea? Or, do you think that France/Germany would rely more on land-based aircraft to interdict any sea traffic trying to move towards Gdansk in Poland? Would they risk the naval assets to try and close the sea lanes?

I ask because if I am going to broaden the AI units to include surface vessels, I want it to be logical.

I appreciate any thoughts on this.

I'd go with primarily using land-based aircraft for offense and using the carrier as a small, coast-hugging mobile airfield. The whole navy is no match for the USN, the carrier group is too small to have much of a chance of even a lucky "expend it in exchange for one American carrier", and if Poland is threatened, any shipping has to go into that narrow area anyway.

Thank you! Just what I needed to hear.

I felt the same, but I didn't want to do the re-design and have players disappointed that there was no opportunity to face-off against a combination French/German task force.

The EurCon forces will have submarines out en masse, though. [;)]

I believe they might use what assets they have… However anything they would do in the North Sea would have to be heavily supported by land-based aircraft… I definitely believe they would use a lot of subs…

I agree with Collier......they could deny access to the Baltic…

they would sink CVBG's with small subs (germany) as they had demonstrated this capability again and again in exercises in the 80ies and 90ies. the french cvbg would strike targets towards the baltic and not venture into open sea (in range of subs and aircraft, also cvbg).

in the end all us cvbg's and ships sink, most aircraft venturing too close to mainland europe will be shot down by sams. any convoy going from and to poland will be slaughtered.

and i do not think russia will sit this one out, they will defend the baltic vigorously.

larry bond book is flawed in many ways...