In my last games, I´m reluctant to launch Torch since I really feel it is almost a gift for the germans.
More incentives to Torch
Moderators: firepowerjohan, rkr1958, Happycat, Slitherine Core
More incentives to Torch
What incentives could we add to make Torch more attractive for the allies?
In my last games, I´m reluctant to launch Torch since I really feel it is almost a gift for the germans.
In my last games, I´m reluctant to launch Torch since I really feel it is almost a gift for the germans.
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Peter Stauffenberg
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You get the Free French units and you get easy targets in North Africa to invade in 1942. Then you can march towards Tunis and build-up an airforce to overwhelm Sicily and Sardinia. Then you have a good chance to deal with mainland Italy.
If you bypass Vichy France then you must make a long distance invasion of Sardinia and Sicily. This means the Axis can fly fighters and bombers to Italy to cover both Sardinia and Sicily. So an invasion there will be harder to accomplish because you can only rely upon carriers for air support. No support from tac bombers or fighters.
You need to get the US forces into action in 1942 and why not go for easy Vichy France. OK, you sacrifice southern France, but the benefits are better in my opinion.
Doing Torch is particularly important if the Germans have managed to stale-mate the British in eastern Libya. If the Germans are on the run in Libya you might use western Libya as airbases to invade Sicily, but I feel having the Tunis area is better. You can even place paras there to threaten to land in both Sardinia and Sicily.
If you bypass Vichy France then you must make a long distance invasion of Sardinia and Sicily. This means the Axis can fly fighters and bombers to Italy to cover both Sardinia and Sicily. So an invasion there will be harder to accomplish because you can only rely upon carriers for air support. No support from tac bombers or fighters.
You need to get the US forces into action in 1942 and why not go for easy Vichy France. OK, you sacrifice southern France, but the benefits are better in my opinion.
Doing Torch is particularly important if the Germans have managed to stale-mate the British in eastern Libya. If the Germans are on the run in Libya you might use western Libya as airbases to invade Sicily, but I feel having the Tunis area is better. You can even place paras there to threaten to land in both Sardinia and Sicily.
Germany also gets tons of free garrisons and more important: Vichy France becomes an axis allied so PP´s from Vichy France cities are not halved. So PP´s obtained by Germany from late 1942 when Torch is launched until late 1944 when Germany usually withdraws from France (40 turns), are significant.
These are the numbers (Free French reinforcements at 3 steps in january are not included):
Allies gets:
2 inf corps.......................70
1 mech corp....................50
1 armoured.....................80
1 half strength BB...........35
TOTAL...........................235 PP´s
Germany gets:
5 garrisons.....................75
9 PPs x 40 turns...........360
TOTAL...........................435 PP´s
And this keeping in mind that in this list are not included North Africa garrisons from which territory the Axis player can evacuate at least 2-3 garrisons and that the allies suffers some losses (low losses) from "clearing" the territory and sinking Vichy French fleet and these repairing losses also means PP´s. whilst german Werhmacht units do not suffer any loss in the operation.
My suggestion is the following:
- to reduce to 50% PP´s of Vichy France or/and to remove Vichy French garrisons in mainland France (historically Vichy France did not join at all the Axis so it would have to be considered an occupied territory: Case Anton/Fall Anton)
- to make also southern France a partisan territory (since it is an occupied territory)
These are the numbers (Free French reinforcements at 3 steps in january are not included):
Allies gets:
2 inf corps.......................70
1 mech corp....................50
1 armoured.....................80
1 half strength BB...........35
TOTAL...........................235 PP´s
Germany gets:
5 garrisons.....................75
9 PPs x 40 turns...........360
TOTAL...........................435 PP´s
And this keeping in mind that in this list are not included North Africa garrisons from which territory the Axis player can evacuate at least 2-3 garrisons and that the allies suffers some losses (low losses) from "clearing" the territory and sinking Vichy French fleet and these repairing losses also means PP´s. whilst german Werhmacht units do not suffer any loss in the operation.
My suggestion is the following:
- to reduce to 50% PP´s of Vichy France or/and to remove Vichy French garrisons in mainland France (historically Vichy France did not join at all the Axis so it would have to be considered an occupied territory: Case Anton/Fall Anton)
- to make also southern France a partisan territory (since it is an occupied territory)
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NotaPacifist
- Senior Corporal - Destroyer
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I do not agree. You can place two air units in Malta which can cover the whole of Sicily and a TAC placed in Tripoli can also reach parts of Sicily (Palermo), as you can see in my last AAR. With 1 or 2 CVs air superiority or at least parity should be achievable for the Allies in 1942/1943. So I do not think that air bases in Tunisia are really necessary for a succesful invasion of Sicily. If you got Sicily it is easy to capture Sardinia and other parts of Italy.Stauffenberg wrote:You get the Free French units and you get easy targets in North Africa to invade in 1942. Then you can march towards Tunis and build-up an airforce to overwhelm Sicily and Sardinia. Then you have a good chance to deal with mainland Italy.
If you bypass Vichy France then you must make a long distance invasion of Sardinia and Sicily. This means the Axis can fly fighters and bombers to Italy to cover both Sardinia and Sicily. So an invasion there will be harder to accomplish because you can only rely upon carriers for air support. No support from tac bombers or fighters.
You need to get the US forces into action in 1942 and why not go for easy Vichy France. OK, you sacrifice southern France, but the benefits are better in my opinion.
Doing Torch is particularly important if the Germans have managed to stale-mate the British in eastern Libya. If the Germans are on the run in Libya you might use western Libya as airbases to invade Sicily, but I feel having the Tunis area is better. You can even place paras there to threaten to land in both Sardinia and Sicily.
Nevertheless, the Free French can be quite a boost for the Allies an are worth a lot of PP. Nevertheless, I agree with Leridano that it would be good if the Allies would have more reasons to do Torch. In none of my games I did Torch (but in some I invaded Vichy France) as it seems a waste of time and resources.
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Peter Stauffenberg
- General - Carrier
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We need the Vichy French garrisons in southern France in case Germany DoW's Vichy.
What we can do is to add some code that when Vichy France is DoW'ed by the Allies then southern France and Corsica turns to French core control, but hex control turns to Axis. That means the production gained from it will be halved and partisans can spawn there. We can also remove the Vichy garrisons in southern France in non-coastal hexes because Germany will simply occupy the territory in France.
I think we need the coastal garrisons because Torch can just as well start with an invasion of Nice and Marseilles.
Also remember that Free France receives a leader (De Gaulle). We could let them get a second leader as well (LeClerc). That means they get some important extra PP's for doing Torch.
Are there any historical events that took place because of Torch. E. g. should we link the possible early Italian surrender to Torch?
One way to do this is that the Allied player can't count the Sicilian cities of Palermo and Messina in the total needed to force an Italian surrender unless Tunis is Allied controlled. With Allied control of Tunis the Italians know Sicily and possibly Sardinia are doomed and morale would be lower.
E. g. we can lower the maximum Italian efficiency by 10 if Tunis is Allied controlled. That simulates a permanent morale loss for Italy due to feeling fighting for the Germans is hopeless. With such a penalty it means Italian units are more likely to be bombed into red effiency and easier to dislodge from the coastal hexes. A similar morale penalty can be added to the loss of Tripoli as well.
To make it directly dependent upon city losses we can simply do the following. For each Italian city under Allied control + Tripoli + Tunis then the max Italian efficiency will drop by 5. This will not affect Italian units with efficiency above the max. It will affect them after being bombed so they can't get as high up as before.
By doing this we make it a bit simpler to invade Italy as well and the Italian garrison spawning won't have much effect because Italian units will have so poor efficiency when built. Since Sardinia is an Italian city it pays off to take that city as well.
With Sardinina, Messina, Palermo, Reggio, Tripoli and Tunis then Italian max efficiency will be 30 lower than before. With organization bumped a bit I think the old max would be 70 and the new max will be 40. So it would be easier to land in mainland Italy and move on to Taranto or Naples.
What we can do is to add some code that when Vichy France is DoW'ed by the Allies then southern France and Corsica turns to French core control, but hex control turns to Axis. That means the production gained from it will be halved and partisans can spawn there. We can also remove the Vichy garrisons in southern France in non-coastal hexes because Germany will simply occupy the territory in France.
I think we need the coastal garrisons because Torch can just as well start with an invasion of Nice and Marseilles.
Also remember that Free France receives a leader (De Gaulle). We could let them get a second leader as well (LeClerc). That means they get some important extra PP's for doing Torch.
Are there any historical events that took place because of Torch. E. g. should we link the possible early Italian surrender to Torch?
One way to do this is that the Allied player can't count the Sicilian cities of Palermo and Messina in the total needed to force an Italian surrender unless Tunis is Allied controlled. With Allied control of Tunis the Italians know Sicily and possibly Sardinia are doomed and morale would be lower.
E. g. we can lower the maximum Italian efficiency by 10 if Tunis is Allied controlled. That simulates a permanent morale loss for Italy due to feeling fighting for the Germans is hopeless. With such a penalty it means Italian units are more likely to be bombed into red effiency and easier to dislodge from the coastal hexes. A similar morale penalty can be added to the loss of Tripoli as well.
To make it directly dependent upon city losses we can simply do the following. For each Italian city under Allied control + Tripoli + Tunis then the max Italian efficiency will drop by 5. This will not affect Italian units with efficiency above the max. It will affect them after being bombed so they can't get as high up as before.
By doing this we make it a bit simpler to invade Italy as well and the Italian garrison spawning won't have much effect because Italian units will have so poor efficiency when built. Since Sardinia is an Italian city it pays off to take that city as well.
With Sardinina, Messina, Palermo, Reggio, Tripoli and Tunis then Italian max efficiency will be 30 lower than before. With organization bumped a bit I think the old max would be 70 and the new max will be 40. So it would be easier to land in mainland Italy and move on to Taranto or Naples.
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Peter Stauffenberg
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I agree with Leridano that the biggest problem with Torch is that the Allied player doesn't want to give Germany a lot of extra production in southern France. Taking out North Africa is not a problem and you gain several new Free French units because of it.
So we might make some changes to deal with that.
My experience with invading Sicily is that it's a lot easier if you have air units in Tunisia. If you have them in Malta then German fighters in southern Italy can constanly harass the air units stationed in Malta. Try taking out Sicily with 2 German air units in inland Sicily, some German air presence in Sardinia and several air units in southern Italy to deal with Malta. You will notice that the 2 air units you have in Malta + CV's aren't enough.
I managed in my game against Joe some time ago to fend off his invasion of Sicily (he didn't do Torch). His invasion was overwhelmed by my Axis units in the area and I kept Sicily for at least 6 more months.
One trick for the Axis is to build several Italian subs. I had 4 subs and they all had hidden in Sicilian coastal hexes. I wasn't so afraid of air interdiction because the Allies only had a few air units from Malta + CV's. So he lost the surprise turn by bumping into 4 subs. Then I went all out after his CV's and knocked them down so hard so they had to flee to port to repair. If the Allies have a strong air presence in Tunisia then you don't have to risk the CV's as much as you do with no Torch.
If the Axis player doesn't prepare well for Husky then I agree that you don't need Tunisia to quickly succeed, but if the Axis is prepared you might see that your invasion fails due to lack of air support. Axis air units located in southern Italy often have slightly better tech and they can repair 5 steps per turn instead of just 3 that the Allied fighters can. So I'm reluctant to starting Husky without making sure I have at least air parity. You don't get that with a fighter and tac bomber in Malta plus 2-3 CV's. It's easy for the Axis to have 2 Italian fighters, 3 German fighters, 1 Italian tac bomber and 2 German tac bombers in the area when Husky is about to launch.
If you saved the Italian navy then you can sacrifice it by going after the Allied CV's. One thing you can do is to send BB's and CV's adjacent to Malta to bombard the fighter there. It means it can't intercept. Then you can go after the airbases on Malta with fighters. CV's can be attacked by subs to prevent interceptions as well. So if you defend properly you can make Sicily so costly for the Allies they might have to retreat to regroup. E. g. you can rail land units to Reggio and ferry them over to Sicily (like adding a German mech or armor in Messina).
I feel that the best way for the Allies to succeed in Sicily is to have a strong presence of tac bombers. I like to have at least 4-5 bombers within range of Sicily.
So we might make some changes to deal with that.
My experience with invading Sicily is that it's a lot easier if you have air units in Tunisia. If you have them in Malta then German fighters in southern Italy can constanly harass the air units stationed in Malta. Try taking out Sicily with 2 German air units in inland Sicily, some German air presence in Sardinia and several air units in southern Italy to deal with Malta. You will notice that the 2 air units you have in Malta + CV's aren't enough.
I managed in my game against Joe some time ago to fend off his invasion of Sicily (he didn't do Torch). His invasion was overwhelmed by my Axis units in the area and I kept Sicily for at least 6 more months.
One trick for the Axis is to build several Italian subs. I had 4 subs and they all had hidden in Sicilian coastal hexes. I wasn't so afraid of air interdiction because the Allies only had a few air units from Malta + CV's. So he lost the surprise turn by bumping into 4 subs. Then I went all out after his CV's and knocked them down so hard so they had to flee to port to repair. If the Allies have a strong air presence in Tunisia then you don't have to risk the CV's as much as you do with no Torch.
If the Axis player doesn't prepare well for Husky then I agree that you don't need Tunisia to quickly succeed, but if the Axis is prepared you might see that your invasion fails due to lack of air support. Axis air units located in southern Italy often have slightly better tech and they can repair 5 steps per turn instead of just 3 that the Allied fighters can. So I'm reluctant to starting Husky without making sure I have at least air parity. You don't get that with a fighter and tac bomber in Malta plus 2-3 CV's. It's easy for the Axis to have 2 Italian fighters, 3 German fighters, 1 Italian tac bomber and 2 German tac bombers in the area when Husky is about to launch.
If you saved the Italian navy then you can sacrifice it by going after the Allied CV's. One thing you can do is to send BB's and CV's adjacent to Malta to bombard the fighter there. It means it can't intercept. Then you can go after the airbases on Malta with fighters. CV's can be attacked by subs to prevent interceptions as well. So if you defend properly you can make Sicily so costly for the Allies they might have to retreat to regroup. E. g. you can rail land units to Reggio and ferry them over to Sicily (like adding a German mech or armor in Messina).
I feel that the best way for the Allies to succeed in Sicily is to have a strong presence of tac bombers. I like to have at least 4-5 bombers within range of Sicily.
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Peter Stauffenberg
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