I have moved the follow up discussion about Loading Transports in Hostile Seazones in the Classic Editon to the Classic-Category:
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/35796/loading-transports-in-hostile-seazones
Good ideas.
@The-Janus said in France's role in Global 1940 SE:
(I find rallying the French into Northwest Persia as sort of an obvious helpful deterrent to the Germans.)
To expand on this a little bit…
I tend to try and get my French infantry from London down into Africa, ASAP (usually using a UK transport, but sometimes US – just depends on what happens in the game.) After that, I try and rally French units towards Egypt, and basically just defend the port until the other Allies clear the Mediterranean.
If you’re trying to support the USSR without putting units in their territory (and thus infringing on their national objective, if they still hold Archangel) Northwest Persia is the obvious place to park 6(ish) French infantry + 1 fighter. They can also be moved up into the Caucasus territory, if that N.O. is not longer a consideration.
If the USSR is in a really bad way, what I’m finding is that the best way for the UK to bail out that situation is to secure the Kazakhstan front; if France is defending the Caucasus (with maybe US tanks racing in, to help) this makes it a little easier. As the UK, you can do this by having 2 transports in the Indian ocean and a harbor in Persia, or by cycling 3 transports between Persia, Egypt, and South Africa (assuming you only want to move 2 infantry at a time; if you want to ship a 3rd unit from South Africa, then you’d need more transports, obviously. If I’m not using that factory to put out transports, I typically just place a tank there and have it drive north, towards Egypt.)
By landing in Eastern Persia, the British are able to insulate India a bit, as well as march up the back wall of the USSR; this is important because of the national objective for controlling Novosibirsk (in 2nd Edition, anyway.) Then the USSR can focus on their core strength, which is trading and defending territories adjacent to Moscow, while holding onto Volgograd for as long as possible. If the UK is also funneling troops into Scandinavia, you can eventually link these up with forces coming through Kazakhstan, to help push the Germans out of Novgorod.
Regarding the French destroyer at Madagascar (I should mention, only in the Europe game, rather than Global) I’ve tended to move this to the Atlantic rather than the Indian Ocean or Mediterranean. If the US is going heavy on carriers or the UK is going more for submarines, having that one French destroyer in the mix can help ensure you can target enemy subs – I’ve occasionally mis-bought as the US while German subs are still lurking around, so being able to move this destroyer to the US east coast for defense can be handy.
@The-Janus You got a lot of good ideas by chance did you every watch his video I made. It talks about France.
Here’s the link: https://youtu.be/I0nxyB3JwAk?si=K0GHmYXuijhuSVDA
@FranceNeedsMorePower said in France's role in Global 1940 SE:
@The-Janus You got a lot of good ideas by chance did you every watch his video I made. It talks about France.
Here’s the link: https://youtu.be/I0nxyB3JwAk?si=K0GHmYXuijhuSVDA
I just went back through this thread earlier today, so I had copied the link, and watched it just now. Here are my overall thoughts:
I recently ran a game in TripleA where I played as the western Allies (as I often do) and was gifted a particularly strong start w/r/t my French units. So I wanted to share that game here:
best France start ever - US18.tsvg
As the file name implies, the game ended with the USSR taking Berlin in round 18; towards the end I was sort of deliberately trying to feed France additional territories (with mixed degrees of success.)
I also was trying to funnel the lone surviving Italian infantry in east Africa into taking French Equatorial Africa, but he never did go for it ;)
@The-Janus This is the must luckiest outcome I have ever seen. The Ai must have been really bad or something.
The French in mainland Italy?
The French in Germany?
Wow, they have become the beast.
@The-Janus said in France's role in Global 1940 SE:
I recently ran a game in TripleA where I played as the western Allies (as I often do) and was gifted a particularly strong start w/r/t my French units. So I wanted to share that game here:
best France start ever - US18.tsvg
I started another game (more of a gimmick run – battleships instead of destroyers, for the US) and somehow Germany failed to take France or Normandy-Bordeaux on G1…?
G1 fail - F22.tsvg
Turned out to be a weird game all around, because the USSR seemed to be in a fairly dominant position (obviously) yet somehow the Germans still made it into the middle east via the Caucasus. I was a lot more aggressive with my UK Mediterranean fleet than I normally am, so that cost me a few units I normally never lose; I think that slowed me down somewhat, but ultimately the Italians probably got the worst of it.
I ended up feeding France some territory towards the end, but with that in mind, I think this game is a pretty good demonstration of how I tend to protect and shepherd my French units – in case anyone wanted some pointers, for reference.
@The-Janus Do you think it is worth it to protect the French units in a tournament game?
@FranceNeedsMorePower
I mean, I’m no expert in that regard. My whole ethos is “a penny saved is a penny earned.”
My general experience of playing as the western Allies in these types of games is actually about projecting a large enough force that your enemy won’t attack you; if preserving French units helps with that, then all the better.
The whole thing with the western Allies is that they need to ramp up and leverage their economies, but it’s not simply enough to out-spend your opponent; you have to actually be able to out-unit them, too.
AFAICT this sort of thinking lines up with one of the more well-considered strategy breakdowns for Global40, which I was pointed towards by more than one person:
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/post/1397227
credit to @AndrewAAGamer for this^^^
Yeah, Andrew’s guide is phenomenal.
Your French moves were pretty solid. I never thought of uniting the French infantry in London with the Africa-Middle East force, but I think you demonstrated pretty well that it makes the Free French a potent force that way.
This might be a really stupid question, but…
As a matter of tactics, are Allied players sending the UK fleet from SZ 98 (Egypt) to SZ 93 (Southern France), after punching through SZ 96 (Malta) with planes or whatever? (It occurs to me that the cruiser at SZ 91 can also meet up there.)
…or is does the game literally come down to “Taranto or GTFO” because absolutely nothing else works?
@The-Janus The issue is the Italians have all of there ships left basically. You need to destroy these ships so they can’t keep re-supplying North Africa. Also, say you do that and for some reason they don’t take out your fleet out. There is the massive German Air force that can strike you down.
So in conclusion you can’t.
My calculations suggest that if the British fully stacked sea zone 93 (sea zone 98 fleet+sea zone 93 fleet+sea zone 91 cruiser), without the sea zone 96 fleet Italy will only have a 55-60% chance of beating the Allies.
Germany would need 4 fighters, 4 tactical bombers, and 2 strategic bombers to have a 90+% chance of smashing that fleet. Given that Germany only starts with 5 fighters, 5 tactical bombers, and 2 strategic bombers, it’s likely that if Germany goes after sea zones 110 and 111 at the same time on turn 1 (which would likely also preclude an attempt to sink the sea zone 91 cruiser using submarines), the Germans won’t able to sink it either.
This might actually work.
@SuperbattleshipYamato I tried it in triple a and got blown to shreds three times in a row, maybe just bad luck?
Share me the games. That shouldn’t be possible.
@SuperbattleshipYamato The games are already gone. Is there a history list of the games you have played? I will try three more times right now.
You didn’t save them? Can you at least describe the number of units on each side?
My game
2025-7-16-World-War-II-Europe-1940-2nd-Edition.tsvg
shows pretty clearly that Germany and Italy will have a tough time cracking that fleet.
@SuperbattleshipYamato Your game just starts with Germany, dom you have one with the part of the fleet intact? The British and French fleet. The Germans sent there planes in to blow up my stuff off the coast of southern france.
I am not understanding the purpose of going to SZ93. Is it to try and save the French fleet?
Using the typical Gibastion strategy the English fleet would have 3 additional fighters protecting it in SZ92. Therefore, in SZ 93 instead, the Allied task force has an additional DD and CA but 3 fighters less. In addition, the British cannot take the AC hit early on because Southern France cannot be used as a landing zone. Thus, the Allied fleet is more vulnerable to an attack.
If the French fleet moves out then the British fleet is very susceptible to an all out German air attack. If the French fleet stays to avoid this then you still can’t save the French fleet. So I am not understanding the purpose of this move.
In addition, with no Naval Base the Allied fleet cannot move to protect against Sealion which is why many people do Gibastion to remove the Sealion threat.
Finally, from SZ93 you cannot get back to Egypt, thus the Italian fleet is free to move against Egypt with no ramifications.
I would not say this move is impossible to do but it certainly seems like a lesser path to travel on.
@AndrewAAGamer I know I’m for supporting French units but I don’t think saving the French fleet is smart.