Old Patch

Sounds like chance. I seem to get them all the time no matter who gets Yugoslavia.

It depends by what you mean "Attack". If you mean an Allied counter offensive in France, then no, I've never had any luck with it. If you want a French HQ (not a bad idea at all) you will probably have to disband the air unit to pay for it. If by "Attack" you mean strike back somewhere against the Axis then yes, there are a number of viable options. Taking out Italy was very popular at one time, Norway is almost a given, Sweden, Portugal, Greece, Spain are all possibilities. Even a landing by a single corps somewhere not in France can buy you several turns as the Computer reacts to the invasion by stripping troops away from France (and spending lots of MPP's on Operational moves).

OK, sounds my first try was an error - I'll give it another shot.

I DID e-mail sales@battlefront.com! Why, it's been (let's see here, big hand on the six and the little hand on the four) almost 20 minutes!! Goldarnit! What are you guys doing over there anyway? Playing SC?

I ordered the game yesterday morning (8/1) and never received a confirmation - how long did it take for you guys to get an order confirmation. I'd place the order again but I don't want to get two copies by mistake!

I'd have to say that SC is nothing like HC - OK, the both cover WWII on the strategic scale, but SC has an AI, plays lots faster, has been well developed and appeasr to be well supported. HC was a complete waste of electrons. Bad AI? Try no AI. You could conquer Russia by pointing your units East and stopping when you hit the edge of the map. You could buy battleships in 1/10th of a ship increments, at different ports, and then create task forces with them. Thank God Hubert never worked on HC!

I found another interesting little bug. If Italy takes France (this happened to the computer in a Gold Demo game) France cannot trace a line of supply to Italy unless Vichy or Switzerland are taken. This has the immmediate effect of all the French resources and cities only getting up to level 5 rather than 8. This costs Italy c. 25 MPP's a turn. By the same token there is a logical reason to take Yugoslavia and give it to the Italians - Albania (and greece if taken) produce more income. I'll leave it up to you to decide if it's worth messing with the Yugoslavian Partisans.

Aloid; Just ther fruits of a mis-spent youth. Glad you liked it - feel free to stump me with any other obtuse naval questions you have. Husky65; Conway isn't a person, like Fred T. Jane (of "Jane's Fighting Ships"), it's the name of the company that publishes the series (and a lot of other neat books). None of my references give either the location, number, or size of the bomb hits on the POW, so from that evidence I would guess that neither those who were there nor thse who studied the incident later felt that the bomb hits were a significant factor in the sinking of the POW. As an anonymous American Admrial one quipped: "In attacking a ship, it is more efficient to let water in from below than to let air in from above" ("Attack on Taranto", Lowery and Wellman, p. 35). As I think back on WWII, I am willing to say that bombs were not a good weapon to try and sink large, armored ships with. Right off the top of my head I can only think of four capital ships that were sunk just by bombs - the Ostfriesland (during the very suspect Billy Mitchell demonstration of the 20's) and Arizona at Pearl Harbor (magazine explosion), the Roma was sunk by two glider bomb (although these were huge compared to regular bombs, and again we have a magazine explosion) and finally the Tirpitz in Norway (again to enormous bombs - the Tall Boys weighed in at a monsterous 12,000 pounds).

"It is however essential to explain how Prince Of Wales was sunk by a probable total of 1 330lb and 3 450lb torpedo warheads charged with the type of explosive used by the Germans in WWI. The 330lb charge broke off the 'A' bracket of the port outer shaft. . . Subsequently three torpedoes with 450lb charges hit the starboard side one of which bent the outer shaft wedging the propellor between the inner shaft and the hull, but it should be noted that the ship capsized to port." Conway's 1922-1946, p.15 So we got four torps doing the big damage - of the three that hit starboard one just bent a shaft and she capsized on the side hit by the smallest torpedo. Even the Repulse (which was 25 years old when sunk in the same attack) took five torpedoes to sink.

Norse; For naval sources I am using Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships volume 1906-1921 (p. 355-363); and volume 1922-1946 (p. 368-377). Great books but a little pricey (c. $100 per volume, and there are 4 volumes covering from 1860-1992). For further information on the Swedish cruiser/carrier (the Gotland) see R. D. Layman's "The Hybrid Warship" p. 39-42 - a neat looking ship and an interesting design. TrionDelta; Yes, the Germans built two modern BB's (in SC terms a 10 point Battleship fleet - if you have 700 MPP's you don't what to do with). The Bismark's were the best battlships in Europe at the time, period. The KGV class were 5,000 tons smaller, slower, and had the worst main gun ever put on a battleship in British practice. Every time it was used in action it jammed, broke, or misfired (Prince of Wales vs. Bismark, KGV vs. Bismark, Duke of York vs. Scharnhorst). The POW was sunk by a WWI era torpedo with half the bursting charge of a full sized torpedo. Need more proof? Britain's last (and only) BB after the KGV's went back to the 15" MkI gun first developed in WWI. The only worthwhile thing about the KGV's is that there were 5 of them and only 2 Bismarks.

At the time of the invasion of Poland Germany had afloat and ready for combat: 2 BC's (35,000 tons @) 3 PB's (12,000 tons @, half the guns of a BB) 3 CA's (15,000 tons @) 2 B's (obsolete BB's from WWI, 13,000 tons @) 6 CL's (6,500 tons @) 22 DD's (10 of which were 3,000 ton 1936A with 6" guns) 24 small DD's (about the same size and weapons as Swedish destroyers)

I have been misquoted. I said Sweden had: 3 Costal defense ships - less than 8,000 tons each so they are smaller than a heavy cruiser. 1 Armored cruiser - about 4400 tons and over 30 years old, so smaller than most other navies light cruisers. 1 Crusier/carrier - about 4700 tons which only carried 6 float planes, not any kind of fighter or strike plane. Destroyer equal to most other navy's pre-war destroyers. All told, about 45,000 tons of warships. Looking at navy lists for WWII, I'm going to guess that a cruiser unit in SC is about 100,000 tons of ships and a battleship is about 150,000 tons.

First off, I don't think the argument used here, that the Sweedish navy 'might' end up hunting Italian subs is a good enough reason why the Sweeds shouldn't have a naval unit at all. After all, world war 2 was all about "odd" things like that. You had New Zealanders fighting in Italy, and arabs fighting under Rommels command in France. Still, the Sweedish unit would haveto slip thru the German wrath and hope that Sweeden would survive long enough for such an event to even happen.[/QB]

Wow! Looks like some more "Gibralter Straits" rules are in order!

Well, it's obvious that CvM LOVES the Finns, and LOVES the Mannerheim line, so perhaps he DID mean "Affective" . . .

How tough was Sweden? In the Beta Demo their army was smaller than that of Greece (two armies) and in the Gold Demo it was the same size AND has an Air Fleet! Anyone have the actual numbers?

while I'm sure Hubert has examined all of the minor navies, I'm not sure Sweden rates a unit at this scale, nor could it be considered "Top Modern". The main units were three small 25 year old coastal defense ships with a short range and slow speed, two odd cruisers (a 35 year old armored ship and cruiser/carrier), 14 destroyers, abotu a dozen small coastal sumarines, and assorted small craft. Spain has a larger, longer ranged fleet and it doesn't rate a fleet either. Turkey even has a (old) battlecruiser! I think there might be cause for a reduced size fleet (give Turkey, Spain, and Sweden a 5 point cruiser when they enter) but I suspect they would be so much easy target practice for a major power. And without movement restrictions I'm sure you would see things like the Swedish fleet hunting Italian subs in the Med. Still, that's what's the Editor is for!

I gave France to Italy once. There were two problems: 1) Germany loses all the Atlantic ports, so no u-boat campaign since you can't get subs past England even against the AI; and 2) although I'm not sure what happens to a conquered country if the Major controlling power falls, Rome is very exposed and easily taken and I worry that the Italian collapse will leave France suddenly Neutral, or even worse pro-Allied. I do think that giving the Italians some minors is a good idea. Germany is going to get Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Finland automatically, and possibly Spain and Turkey depending on how the game goes (plus whatever they conquer, of course). The Italians only receive 110 MPP's a turn, which just a little short of being useful - once they are over 125 MPP's a turn they can build a corps in one turn, or half an army or a research point. The 250 odd MPP's they receive for conquering a minor will speed up their army builds and thus their Mediterranean Campaign. I always give them Yugoslavia, Greece if I get that far, and whatever bits of Vichy happen to fall into my hands. Yes, German MPP's are better but a stronger Italy is a much bigger asset than another 20 or 30 MPP's a turn in Berlin.

You can't fit a single CD in your luggage? C'mon, you don't REALLY need all those shirts do you?

I found that taking Sweden is very easy - don't do an amphibious invasion. By invading from Norway, Sweden will fall easily and the amount of time it takes depends on how many troops you send there. If you are on a budget, send a corps and an army from Poland, a corps from Denmark, and an HQ and two airfleets as soon as France falls to Norway. If you are in a hurry change the corps for armies or even a tank group. My worst performance was six turns, my best three turns, and there is usually plenty of time to ship the troops back to Poland for Barbarossa. Since Sweden adds 56 MPP's a turn to the German Economy, and only about 15% to the war meter for the USA and Russia, I can see taking Sweden becomeing a standard strategy very quickly.