Cheese Panzer

You see, Scook, this is why I stopped posting on this forum. Some of the assholes around here are so big they must have to type their messages standing up!

Thank you very much, Scook!

Just Army, doesn't include Navy or Air Force. </font>

Keep in mind the other effect of liberating Paris - Paris is the only Western Allied national capitol on the continent and once it is captured then cities can go back up to 10 supply level. Establish a chain of allied controlled saures to the Mid-East and all those 5 point UK cites will grow up to 10.

You know, now that you mention it, the Germans really didn't have amphibious capacity for Norway. Most of the troops were loaded on warships and off-loaded on docks in harbors and ports. Not really an amphibious assault, more like a coup-de-main.

Cool idea, Lars, SC2 as a budget teaching tool. Think it will catch on?

... and another kneejerk ignorant comment from j_j_r. Try reading a book.

Didn't Gary Grigsby's War in Russia do this? You built corps out of divisions and brigades, and your factories even produced various models of tanks! Talk about micro-management! I think it's pretty significant that no-one ever tried to something like that again in a computer game.

And this is coming from the SC2 forum's resident unread ignoramus, who's entire grasp of WWII comes from watching movies. A modern Miracle!

I can think of a few, although in many the mechanisms are rather abstract but they still reinforce success which is what this boils down to: Totaler Krieg - the Axis Tide mechanic. Empires in Arms - the Political Status Dipslay also effects combat and production indirectly. Third Reich - a country doing well can afford to save more ER's to invest for long term increases. I'm sure there are more but I haven't kept up on new boardgames in about ten years.

I know it's hard to identify with this 60 years out, but the fall of the small countries in the early war, and espcially the Fall of France, were earth-shaking events on a par with 9/11, at least for the Western countries. You can read any memior from the period and hear the fear and shock even today. Even in backwaters like Greece these events had an impact - I've read a memior by the wife of the Greek Prime Minister, and although she doesn't say much about the rest of Europe, the Fall of France definitely worries her. Russia is a different story - with rigid control of the press by the government and population still struggling to survive and rebuild after WWI and the Russian Civil War, I just can't see the Russian troops knowing that these events had happened or caring very much if they did. Add to that a lack of primary accounts from Russian soldiers that weren't edited for Party Doctrine - it's hard to give a hard and fast rule. I think the game as written handles the demoralization for the Allies very well but not as well for the Russians.

So that means what, exactly? That Finns have thick furry pelts and layers of insulating blubber?

The sig is a now famous tiff between the French and the British that happened not too long ago: Somehere in the mid-1990's there was an Embassy dinner in London hosted by the French. The British Foreign Secretary (Jack Straw? I'm not sure) and his wife attended. The above quote (I've also heard it as "Isn't Isreal just a ****ty little country?") was spouted off by the French Ambassador. The British minister's wife was a writer for a London newspaper and published the whole ugly mess the next day. The French were outraged! How dare the British publish something said at a dinner party! They even demanded at retraction from the government. Obviously they didn't and the event pisses people on both sides off to this day.

Advanced rockets can blow the defending Malta corps away, although if you have the time and cash to build several advanced rockets you are probably going to use them to take London and not Malta. But it can be done.

Although I kind of like "Incorrigible" - like it's a whole army full of recidivist vandals or something.

"That contemptable little army" (this was before the BEF stopped the German Army at Mons) which became "The Old Contemptables".

Must have been mighty small divisions. I just find it odd that when the Germans attacked at Kasserine Pass on the border between Tunisia and Algeria that none of those 70,000 Free French were involved. I'm not questioning the numbers, but the actual capability of the troops. And NO ONE enjoyed having to deal with DeGaulle. Save your breath on the FF navy, I got that one covered. Now, the Rubis, THERE was a real contributor to the Allied war effort.

I know the Germans invaded Vichy right after the Torch landings in November of 1942. Was there a declaration of war? Was there some other fancy name used to justify the invasion? I'm pretty sure there wasn't any fighting and the Germans disarmed the Vichy forces and confiscated their equipment. The Franch retaliated by scuttling what was left of thier Navy at Toulon.

I believe you are confusing "platoon" with "division". The Dutch fleet had nothing larger than 3 small, elderly light cruisers - one of which was so "advanced" it was scuttled as part of the Normandy breakwater just after D-Day, it being more useful as sunken hulk than as a fighting ship.

That's the Vichy Black Hole you've found there, Dave. Eats anything Allied that ends up in it while it just boots outs any Axis that are across the line when time runs out for France. Chalk it up to experience because the BEF ain't coming back.

RE: Norway Not only was the Norweigan army small, spread out over a huge country, and completely lacking in any combat experience, but they sent out their mobilization orders BY MAIL when the German invasion fleet sailed. Two 3 point Norweigan corps sounds about right to me.

Oh, crap! I knew I missed one! :mad: (Although I ask you, really - you loan a friend a nice destroyer and what does he do? He fills it full of TNT and rams it into a drydock. And then he blows it up! Lend-Lease my eye! You try that with a rental car and see if you get your security deposit back!}

OK, I know they had a brigade in North Africa ('41-'42), and I thought they had a single division in Italy after Salerno ('43). Where was the corps and how was it organzied? In my (admittedly spotty) reading of the ETO operations I don't recall seeing multi-divisonal French forces deployed until the breakout from Normandy in July of 1944. Or was it organized in 1942 and not committed to combat until 1944?

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From an SC2 programming stand point ALL nations forces are removed when they surrender. Free French forces are the exception - no other nation is able to do this. And this is still not an agreed option - you'll notice that there is an option to turn it off! For a number of reasons a Dutch/Belgian evacuation/revival is extremely unlikely. First, even if the army survives on the map, I can't imagine the Dutch/Belgian governments allowing their armies to be removed from defending the nation. Historically they were shattered so fast in 1940 that evacuation wasn't an option. Even if they had been evacuated many if not most of the troops would have opted to quit fighting and go home. The Dutch still had colonial poseesion in Asia which I'm sure were reinforced, but the Belgians pretty much had no place to go and no real reason to keep fighting. Finally, IIRC the Dutch were using German equipment and Belgians French equipment. It would have been a long time before any large numbers could have been re-equipped with Allied equipment and brought back into fighting strength. Keep in mind that even the largest occupied force available to the Allies (the Free French) weren't even able to put a full divison in the field until 1943 and barely rated a full corps in SC2 terms by 1944.