Slitherine

Ouch, I see a massive Axis breakthrough if they do it right!

richardsd wrote:Ouch, I see a massive Axis breakthrough if they do it right!

Very interesting ... as Sgt Schultz would say. What did you see?

If I had been the Axis I would have hit the MECH with the commander with an ARM, the very weak INF in front of it could be easily delt with.

You cant see the odds around the river lines but suspect it would have been easy to get accross in the south with 1 air attack. That would have destroyed the French defensive line.

Instead they have been very conservative which will add two turns to the fall of France by my estimate.

Its one of those tyrns where you go - oh oh, I want to play that turn!

it will be interesting to see if Reims can fall to two attacks, if so a masive sweep through the south is still possible

This AAR illustrates why playing Axis is so much trickier than playing the Allies.

Taking France in August instead of June means a significant blunting of the Axis weapon--less income (from conquered France), more casualties, and two or three precious summer turns lost that could have been used to heat up the war elsewhere.

As a result, I expect Col. Klink to find it a challenge to get his house in order for Barbarossa.

It's definitely a challenge to take out France will few casualties. If the Allied player sends a BEF then you will be lucky if you make a June conquest.

Weather is also quite important. I got bad weather in both February and March. So Paris didn't fall until July in one game and end of June in the other game. I was glad I had done the Scandinavian blitz. So taking out the Balkans will not be a problem. So far it seems the build up for Barbarossa is going as planned.

So the challenge is not necessarily about losing too many PP's, but about losing time. Doing Sealion will be very hard if you're met with a strong resistance in France. For me the key is to not take any risks in France as the Axis and just grind your way to Paris. If you allow your units to get surrounded then you lose them and fall behind schedule on the buildup for Barbarossa. I usually repair units when they get to 7 steps or lower. The exception is very late in Case Yellow when the good French units are destroyed or seriously depleted.