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Curious - what are the thoughts on proper use of navy and air to stop Sealion or early invasion of Italy in Warplan mechanics?

It seems only way is to use House Rules. The designer is not doing enough in this area.

So I have not tried this in a HvH game but this is what I would use. It assumes that the invaders have air superiority:

Have your bombers on intercept. Put them out of range of enemy bombers but in range of possible invasion locations. Hopefully they will get some naval intercepts and sink some invaders.
Take your fighters off intercept. Save them for your own turn.
Have your fleet on Night move and covering the invasion locations. This way they can not be bombed and can hopefully intercept and sink some invaders. Do not leave fleets in port within bombing range. You need lots of spare ships so the patrols can be rotated to refuel (or use oil). Your opponent cannot see what is in a fleet so you can make them play a guessing game.

Don't put any land units on beach hexes. But do have them on coastal hexes to block invasion where possible. If you can stop the invader getting two Corps against a port it may hold out for an extra turn.

OK. So think Italy, 1941. 17+ ports to defend. Where do you keep air units and naval units to defend all 17 ports from invasion? And do you garrison them all?

Can only and say how the rules work in practice, as I understand them (which might not even be correct).
As to how to defend Italy that depends on what else is happening in the game, what your strategy is, units built, oil available, what the allies are up to... it goes on and on.

Can only and say how the rules work in practice, as I understand them (which might not even be correct).

And may change from one version to the next without any disclosure.

ORIGINAL: Michael T

Can only and say how the rules work in practice, as I understand them (which might not even be correct).

And may change from one version to the next without any disclosure.

As it should be! The new genre of wargaming.[8D]

There are several key ports in Italy, Germany and France. Cover them well and have a reactionary force nearby. Naval Invasions cannot be stopped with coupled with air/naval and overwhelming odds as they couldn't be in real life. However it took the Western Allies till '44 to really amass that within their acceptable losses 'level'.

I think Stalin clamored for earlier.

Within the game the same thing is true, where there are lots of naval, air and land assets a Naval Invasion will be more difficult... Where there are less of those it will be easier. You can only do what you can do. I have had a person invade me on a D-day hold a section of real-estate and win and lose. As Axis. As Allies I think you really need flexibility with the current META in the game so changing anything should be done by those who have practiced it enough.

If I am a 7 on a 1-10 scale in skill and you're an 8 and cannot ever successfully naval invade me then it wouldn't be a balanced game?

I certainly don't expect to be able to never be invaded. I would expect that some level of naval and air superiority would be needed before a successful invasion on the scale of a game like WP would be needed. So I was hoping there were some things one could do with air and naval units that would require the opponent to invest in gaining superiority instead of just being able to make an invasion because a naval unit was in port (as an example).

For example, as I recall, in AWAW/3rd Reich play, interception could occur even if the naval unit was in port. And in WIF, it is abstracted with naval areas, so one can put naval units into an area to contest invasions. Trying to figure out if WP has similar concepts.