I had belief in Ronnie all along and felt that he would just make it to the end. Congrats for defending so well so you could be victorious.
I think that the Spanish gambit strategy for the German is a very risky one. Taking Spain is not difficult and maybe not even Gibraltar. But holding it requires quite a bit of units. In my game against MrPlow I lost Spain and noticed that he actually helped he that he had Spain. Quite a lot of partisans appeared and they moved to capture some hexes. These vacated hexes can be used as airbases for the British. So could send a tac or strat bomber directly from Britain to Spain and then to Sardinia or northern Africa. So no need to risk sending bombers to the med via transports. MrPlow lost Italy earlier because I could do this.
Ronnie succeeded with the Spanish gambit because Jim decided to defend near Gibraltar and lost several units. Then he invaded Portugal and lost even more units. I think the best strategy for the Allies is to ony send air units to Spain and the land units from Britain to Egypt. The British air units can then force the Germans to send their fighters to Spain instead of using them as escorts for bombing London. Then you can withdraw the fighters to Spanish Morocco and further to Egypt when Gibraltar is about to lose.
I think the main task for the British before Barbarossa is to SAVE the Royal Navy. It's your only weapon for quite some time. That means you need to keep them away from Luftwaffe bombardments after France falls and you must keep your entire Atlantic navy in one big group so you can deal with the subs if they attack. That means many unescorted convoys, but better let the subs kill them than lose CV's and BB's one by one. You need the navy to escort the units from Britain to Egypt.
I think the British can keep Egypt for quite some time if they defend near El Alamein. When you see Crete full of Luftwaffe units then you retreat out of the air range and move across the Suez if you have to. The point is to never allow the Axis to kill your units in Egypt. Rail them to Iraq if you have to and wait for the Axis to move there. It takes quite a lot of turns and that means you have time to reinforce with more fighters, maybe a tac bomber, Monty and some land units. The British should delay the Axis so much so the Axis engagement here will interfere with the Barbarossa buildup. Life becomes much easier once the Axis bombers fly to eastern Europe for Barbarossa.
Supermax would never have taken Canada in the game against Panzergeneral if the British had saved the Royal Navy.
Even if the Spanish gambit is risky I think it's definitely worth trying against not so experneiced opponents. I would probably not have dared this strategy against Joe or Supermax. Or maybe I would just to surprise them
