1. Cape Verde Basin.
2. German u-boat in 0-box with a 10% chance of finding initiates combat.
3. There's an RN CA in the 3-box and 2-box and 5 CW CP's in the 0-box (no escorts).
4. There's also a Vichy CP in the sea area (0-box).
5. Search rolls. Germany rolls a 5, so they don't find and the CW rolls a 1 and they do find.
6. Now what's interesting is that because of the presence of the Vichy CP the 5 unescorted CW CP's in the 0-box also find. No big deal, right? Wrong!
7. Why? Well, unless the CW uses 4 of their 7 SP's to select a specific combat the default order is naval air, submarine and surface. Since neither side has any air in the combat, then naval air can't be defaulted to by either side. Next comes submarine. Submarine can only be defaulted to if opposing CP's are included in the combat. And because of the -1 search roll modified due to the presence of the Vichy CP, the CW CP's "find" and are included which means that if the CW doesn't use 4 SP's to select a combat, then Germany can "default" to a submarine combat and still (potentially attack the CW CP's).
8. What the CW wanted (expected) was to be able to default to a surface combat and use all 7 of their surprise points to either increase axis risk and / or decrease their own. Now, if the CW wished to fight a surface they have to use 4 SP's just because of the presence of the Vichy CP.
