France's role in Global 1940 SE

[FranceNeedsMorePower]

@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

[The Janus]

@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:

1. UK fighter: Generally I don’t scramble planes, ever; in a recent game I saw the Ai send some undefended transports, so I took the option to scramble, then. In the early naval battles around the UK, it just never seems worth it, because the scrambled planes can’t retreat from combat so they’re basically doomed to die.
2. North Africa: I tend to see the Ai axis take Tunisia but then back off; as I mentioned earlier in the thread, it seems like the thing to do as France is back off as far away from the Italian transports as possible, and add French units from the UK there as well; this basically means defending Morocco until the US/UK can land to reinforce the position. If you push everything into Algeria (assuming the Italians leave Tunisia alone, at first) I worry that they’ll get dogpiled by an amphibious landing; Morocco is a lot safer.
3. Egypt/East Africa: I don’t typically see the Italians break into central Africa, but just in case they do, I always move the French infantry from West Africa to Nigeria, rather than to French Central Africa. This might be a little bit superstitious of me, but basically, as a general rule I want to leave French territories undefended, so that they can potentially be reclaimed by my Allies, if Italy captures them.
4. Madagascar: As I said, I tend to send the destroyer to the Atlantic; I don’t find much use in keeping a large fleet in/around Suez. If the Allies can’t challenge the Italian navy in the Mediterranean, they’re best off hiding behind the canal; you only really need enough navy to fend off any planes from sniping UK transports. If there aren’t any Axis planes within range, then I just run the transports naked. What I tend to see happen in my games is that the US and UK built up around Gibraltar, and if the Italian fleet is in range of both those fleets and the Suez fleet, then the UK fleets merge up for an attack. (As I’ve mentioned in this thread: https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/post/1696439 I know it’s popular for the UK to use their planes for a Taranto attack ASAP, but I tend not to.) I also tend not to build ships off of South Africa, aside from a transport or two – sometimes more, if I get in a position to start shuttling guys from the middle east into Greece.
5. Indochina: I think the obvious reason there isn’t a French infantry there to start the game, is because the Pacific game on its own can then easily have no French pieces, no? I think if it makes sense and/or makes the game better balanced, I don’t see any objection to adding it for the Global game. IMO that’s basically the same idea as how the Global game adds ANZAC infantry to Egypt. (I think if you wanted to represent the French in Indochina when using just the Pacific game, the obvious thing to do would be use an American infantry; they’ll be long dead before any “real” Americans show up, anyway.)
6. Mediterranean: Now, perhaps because I don’t do the Taranto raid, I see my French ships in the Mediterranean usually get wiped out on the Italian turn – so i tend to discount them from my planning. If any of them do survive, I treat it as a bonus (likewise for the Channel ship) and just try to merge them up with my other destroyer. To me, Gibraltar (SZ 91) is the obvious rallying point for the allied fleets. (edit: That being said, on the first turn I oftentimes send the UK fleets to sz 106, off of eastern Canada, to rally up and drop down a new carrier for existing fighters to land on. That way they’re well out of range of the Luftwaffe.)
7. Paris: I tend to play pretty old-school, so when I make a landing in Europe as the US, it’s generally all infantry with some planes; not that I expect France to have much to do at that point in the game, but I don’t agree that adding more French infantry for defense is the obvious move. I think if you want France sniping as much territory as they can manage when the opportunities arise (particularly if US/UK are doing can-opener type moves, for them) you might want to mix in another offensive unit, to go with your starting fighter. Generally I don’t change the default 4 inf in TripleA, but once I get France up and running, I always immediately feel like I need tanks or artillery, or else I’m just going to be sitting around defending – like France has been, all game.
8. Psychological Warfare: It depends on your opponent; if it’s someone who’s running every battle through a calculator, they’re probably not going to be fooled or have any surprises pulled on them. If you’re playing “live” and people are just eyeballing things, then sure.
9. Can-opening as France: I think the trouble is that most of the time, you’re going to (at best) be attacking with 2 infantry and a fighter. So you’re only really going to win a battle vs. 1 defender. And if you get hit back, suddenly you’re completely out of steam for basically the remainder of the game. I honestly feel it’s better to have French units as a mixed defending force, than trying to use them offensively, particularly since taking territory (even by accident) as France is a detriment to the Allies. (For example: it’s better to have the US land a 50/50 tank/inf force in Morocco, if it’s defended by a handful of French infantry + a fighter; otherwise, the US would want to go heavier on infantry and not risk exposing their tanks.) You make a valid point about opening up Tobruk for mech/tanks to break through; do you often see the UK push coming from that direction, with those types of units? I tend to see everything flowing in from Morocco.

[The Janus]

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 ;)

[FranceNeedsMorePower]

@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]

@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.

[FranceNeedsMorePower]

@The-Janus Do you think it is worth it to protect the French units in a tournament game?

[The Janus]

@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^^^

[SuperbattleshipYamato]

@The-Janus

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.

[The Janus]

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?

[FranceNeedsMorePower]

@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.

[SuperbattleshipYamato]

@The-Janus

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.

[FranceNeedsMorePower]

@SuperbattleshipYamato I tried it in triple a and got blown to shreds three times in a row, maybe just bad luck?

[SuperbattleshipYamato]

@FranceNeedsMorePower

Share me the games. That shouldn’t be possible.

[FranceNeedsMorePower]

@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.

[SuperbattleshipYamato]

@FranceNeedsMorePower

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.

[FranceNeedsMorePower]

@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.

[AndrewAAGamer]

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.

[FranceNeedsMorePower]

@AndrewAAGamer I know I’m for supporting French units but I don’t think saving the French fleet is smart.

[SuperbattleshipYamato]

@AndrewAAGamer

It’s useful if the British player decided to scramble against Germany hitting sea zones 110 and 111 and the Allies lost both of those battles. In such a situation fighters wouldn’t be available for Gibastion.

You’re broadly right that Gibastion without 110 and 111 scrambles as a whole is probably smarter.

[SuperbattleshipYamato]

@FranceNeedsMorePower

Starts with Germany? I just followed the turn order. My game ends with the beginning of Italy’s first turn. As you can see the Luftwaffe is already pretty worn down smashing 110 and 111 with scrambles.