Slitherine

The Scandinavian Blitz means that the British convoys can move unopposed, which translates to higher PP income for the UK, which means bloodier Fall Gelb (troops) or harder Battle of the Atlantic (DDs). Cleaning up Norway completely will take some time, too.

It all depends whether the Axis player thinks that the additional PP income and time saved in 1940 is worth it.

The Scandinavian blitz is not a good deal PP's wise, but not a bad one either. The main reason to do the blitz is to get freedom after the fall of France. If France falls late you can still do the Balkans since Scandinavia is already done. If you do France early you can consider Sealion or at least an intervention in Africa.

The biggest con is that Germany burns quite a bit extra oil and it can come back to bite them later in Russia.

The biggest con is that Germany burns quite a bit extra oil and it can come back to bite them later in Russia.

Really? In most games players invade Norway, anyway, so they still need some oil and PP for that. Is the difference that significant?

The British intervention means that it takes some time to take Bergen/Trondheim, but this can bite you in the ass both in 1939 and in 1940.

Cybvep wrote:

The biggest con is that Germany burns quite a bit extra oil and it can come back to bite them later in Russia.

Really? In most games players invade Norway, anyway, so they still need some oil and PP for that. Is the difference that significant?

The British intervention means that it takes some time to take Bergen/Trondheim, but this can bite you in the ass both in 1939 and in 1940.

The British intervention in 1940 generally means trying to clean out Bergen/Trondheim in winter while hoping to have fresh air units for Barbarossa in the Spring. If you get Oslo in 1939 you can pretty easily clean it up in 1940 without hindering the French campaign too much.

I still think the Brits should have to intervene with ground troops and not just air. I'd still vote to make Trondheim and Bergen Axis controlled at the fall of Oslo unless there were Brit ground troops there.

Pionurpo landed a British garrison in both Bergen and Trondheim when I invaded Norway in October 1939. Since the Axis tac bombers operate in winter conditions they don't hit as hard so battles take longer. You can only support the operations for a few turns before the Luftwaffe must rebase to Germany for Case Yellow. It's not enough to just get to Germany. You need to regain efficiency too.

So you use the air units more turns to clear Norway and that burns more oil. Another aspect is that you need to rebase the entire Luftwaffe to the Danish border and then into Denmark to cover all hexes near Oslo. Since you invade in uncertain weather you must have all 5 air units to ensure you can airstrike units south of Oslo if they can rail there. So you end up using 5 air units for maybe 3 turns (2 rebases and 1 strike) before you have the situation under control. Then you need to rebase again to get to Germany.

If you invade Norway in July then you just need 2 tactical bombers (sometimes only 1) and a fighter in reserve to sweep Norway. Weather is fair so your air units bite hard and you will take Oslo the turn after invasion.

So you waste your air units in poor conditions when you invade in October. If you're lucky with the weather you might burn just slightly more than you would with a July invasion, but quite often you get mud or winter somewhere. Then you notice the old consumption bleeds your reserves.

Now speaking only for myself and not in any way for our axis player, Col Klink, the extra oil spent (if any) is not a factor for me. For me it's totally about better controlling the timeline. That is, with Norway taken care of in 1939 I don't have to fret if things in France are going too slowly. Also, I can move directly to the Balkans after France with 2 German and 1 Italian invasion point. And, finally, I don't have to pull u-boats off patrol and move them to Norway to cover a summer/fall 1940 invasion.

But with that said this doesn't mean I will try this every game. In some games I may feint this invasion in order to try draw reaction. And, if I get a strong RN reaction then inflict some damage on them.

Looking at this AAR, I'm hating the tactic of flying units into Nwg ports even more. If the Brits want to contest Nwy, fine, but they should have to do it with ground troops. By flying in then out, the Allies a) temporarily get production from those cities (which is just silly), b) prevent the Axis from railing Gar in there, which in the case of Trondheim means a long overland slog, c) make it possible to slip British BB into those ports to interdict safely until the German can get ground troops there.

To accomplish all of this by zipping the flyboys in and out of ports is just gamey. Is there no way to remedy this?

I agree with the previous poster. It's too easy for the Allies and very annoying for the Axis.

Cybvep wrote:I agree with the previous poster. It's too easy for the Allies and very annoying for the Axis.

I also don't like it (in my game Mareth was defended this way for 2 turns untill Axis ground reinforcements arrived) but in this case I'd say this is rough simulation of prolonged defense made by UK in 1940.

If Axis didn't evacuate those infs he could reach those cites in 4-5 turns. They would probably not be used in initial stages of assault on France but could join later which is not a big harm for Germans at this stage.

Kragdob wrote:

Cybvep wrote:If Axis didn't evacuate those infs he could reach those cites in 4-5 turns. They would probably not be used in initial stages of assault on France but could join later which is not a big harm for Germans at this stage.

But this is really not a good representation of historical reality. In reality, the Germans finished their Norwegian campaign after about two months (that would be 3 turns, not 4-5), and the British weren't able to do this for "free," as the game now allows. They did land ground troops at several locations and, in a rather fumbling way, tried to keep the Germans at bay. As I recall, there were also naval actions, with losses on both sides. Simply being able to pop in and out with a couple of planes is a very poor representation, even in the abstract, of this kind of action.

This was my suggestion elsewhere - make Bergen and Trondheim "German" upon DOW of Norway (place Norwegian GARs elsewhere). This would simulate the landings of small groups of Germans - not enough to prevent a landing but would prevent basing of Brit air in those areas. Brits could still intervene with land troops by sea. Prevent 1939 blitz or Norway/Denmark by placing Brit sub closer to the action at start.

Actually the real Germans landed in Narvik, Trondheim, Bergen, Stavanger, Kristiansand, Egersund and other places on April 9th. So they quickly secured the vital areas. Doing so meant that they exposed most of their navy and many German naval units were damaged or sunk.

In GS the Germans can just land near Oslo and protect the surface ships with subs. So the Germans can take Norway with little effort.

The Germans were actually driven out of Narvik in May 1940, but the Allied troops there were evacuated when Case Yellow started. Only then did Norway surrender. Norwegian troops alone in the north would not have lasted long.

If the British land garrison units in Norway in Bergen and Trondheim then the Germans need to take them out the hard way. The Germans can actually make it harder for the Allies by having subs near Trondheim and Bergen, but at the cost of making Oslo more exposed to Allied intervention.

If the British only send air units to Trondheim and Bergen then the Germans can either land a garrison adjacent to these cities and take them the turn after. It costs 16 PP's, though. The alternative is to send corps units towards Trondheim and Bergen. You can rail north of Lillehammer and can be in Trondheim rather quickly. Bergen you must take by marching up the Hallingdal and down to the fjords.

In fair weather this should be rather fast because the corps units move 3 hexes per turn.

If you invade in October 1939 then you face having to clear out the Norwegians during winter and I can tell you that it would not have been easy for the Germans, despite the poor Norwegian preparation. So Norway would not have fallen in 3 turns with a 1939 invasion.

Simulating the real invasion is not possible because the Germans in GS would be busy with Case Yellow in April 1940. Therefore the alternative to taking Norway in 1939 is to take it in July 1940. Then the weather is fair and you can easily prevent the Allies from sending units to Bergen and Trondheim. At that time you might have got the first subs you started to build and you might have the 3 at start subs to play with. The British will have to protect England and won't be as inclined to send land units to Norway, definitely not air units.

So what we are discussing is a gamble where the Germans invade in 1939 before the British are engaged in defense of their home territory. THEN the Allies could send units to Norway as they did in the real war. The Allies landed in Åndalsnes and Namsos to liberate Trondheim and also in Narvik. So the Germans actually had to spend signifcant forces to get Norway under control.

In GS you actually benefit quite a lot from taking Norway. You get a free corps in Finland, PP's from Norway and much better protection of the Swedish iron ore route.

I agree that it LOOKS gamey to see air units left in e. g. Norway and French coastal cities when Norway / France surrender. But if you look at the real war you see that the Germans had to send units after the fall of France to Bordeaux, Brest, Nantes etc. to clear up the areas before armistice was signed. The French didn't surrender immediately after Paris fell.

So I see this as a way to clear up. It's a little nuisance to the Axis, but nothing to worry about. I always ensure I send my armor /mech units westwards on the turn I take Paris. I can even rail units to Rennes to clear Brest and Nantes the following turn.

Against Norway the Germans might be better off landing garrisons adjacent to Bergen and Trondheim to prevent Allied landings there, but they don't have the landing capacity for it if they send 2 units to Oslo. Maybe it's better to make a paradrop against Oslo plus 1 corps and land another corps near Bergen. Trondheim is easier to liberate since you can rail to Lillehammer.

It's certainly possible to code so air units stationed in cities of a surrendering country could be sent to the force pool and let the conqueror get control of these cities. But for land units we send the units to the force pool and let the UK keep control. This rule can also be exploited because you get an easy way of getting your airplanes back to your home country. Land units had to be evacuated like the Dunkirk operation, but air units could just leave the French bases and land at British airfields instead. So evacuation of air units would have been much easier.

If we don't let the air units be able to keep control of the hex they're in when a country surrenders then we need to send the unit to the force pool or destroy it. That doesn't feel right regarding air units since they could so easily evacuate. Since air units could evacuate so easily it means they didn't have to leave until the enemy forces were quite close.

What we're dealing with here is actually the downside of having only 1 unit per hex rule. With stacking we would say that air units can't capture or hold hexes, but that's not possible with 1 unit per hex. Then the air unit must control the hex it's in. We could see the air unit as airplanes with support troops of the airbase. E. g. the Luftwaffe had significant forces protecting the planes besides paratroopers. They even built big formations like the Herman Göring divisions.

So regardless of what we do there will be some kind of abstraction.

I don't see a way to prevent this from happening because the Allied player should be allowed to support Norway and France with air forces. It looks gamey, but it doesn't make the fall of France or Norway any harder. The clean up might take a little more time, but that's just a minor problem.

The only possible solution I can think of is that hexes controlled by another country than the core owner surrounded by only water and enemy controlled hexes will be absorbed by the enemy controlling the adjacent hexes. This way you need to keep units in the isolated hexes or begin to move so you get control over several hexes.

By adding such a rule you won't benefit from landing air units in French cities and Bergen/Trondheim only to leave again. The Germans would absorb these hexes just 1 turn after the surrender. Is that maybe a change we should consider doing?