Vichy France and the French Navy

@weddingsinger:

I guess its only unique application is its after Italy but before Germany.  Not a frequently useful window of opportunity.

If you wait until after G2 so you know no Sea Lion, the fighter can be in Moscow or Calcutta before G6/J6

Mostly my French Fighter ends up in Egypt.

There’s two basic allied responses to holding France G1.

In case (2), I say surrender, even though it may cost the allies the entire RAF. In case (1), you may be able to keep playing. I’ve got a game going now where Paris did fail, I think I should have deferred the DOW on USSR until G4 and played Japan as normal. This does allow a few allied actions like USA reaching the med or Norway. However, it is better than letting the Soviets push back all over the shop and get communism objectives for Scandinavia etc. I suppose this is a bigger deal in balanced mod because as soon as you DOW, you release the increased NOs for USSR. Also, all the money from being at war allowed the Soviets to buy enough planes to stop me from being able to effectively strat bomb Moscow.

Better to prepare for a counter attack where you won’t have to deal with fighters in the battle and coastal bombardments. So no defending the atlantic wall in this version of the game.

I think this take is mostly accurate but sometimes Allies have so many transports and (UK) fighters that they might be able to hold Normandy (especially in cases when the bulk of the Luftwaffe is far away).  In cases like that, it might behoove Germany/Italy (let’s say they are defending Germany, West Germany, and France from a big Allied fleet) to move the France stack to Normandy.  If the USA force is relatively small and the UK force is not enough to take Normandy, a 1-2 attack would be costly and risky.  Landing in Holland instead is not always an option, since it’s adjacent to Normandy and W Germany and within tank/mech range of Germany).

In circumstances like that I’ve had success stacking Normandy with a combined German/Italian stack.

shove a carrier in 109

I believe i read the poll question correctly YG  :wink:  The additional 4 unit bonus from liberating Paris is the only extra French units i’ve used in the OOB set up.  Oztea’s 1941 asks for a bit more, which is fun, but obviously for a mod.  Your purchases will be more than adequate IMO.  The real question I want to know is…what’s this new UK Pacific Nation you speak of??  Excited to hear about that!

Page 10 and 35 of the Europe 1940 Rulebook explains how France is dealt with.

@larrymarx:

Thanks for the responses. The fleet move to take Persia and Iraq probably isn’t a good idea then. Now here’s another question: if Japan declares war on Britain while already at war with Russia, can the US player then land his aircraft in Russia? Russia is not yet at war with Germany or Italy.

Only if the US is at war can it land aircraft in non-US territory