Escaping by sea?

[Sir Garnet]

Singapore, Gibraltar, Dunkirk, or some other port or simply a coastline - when being pressed by the enemy, where, when and how do troops get away by ship and when are they stuck to win or die?

Do rearguards allow units ordered to Retreat from the same province to get away?

Can a unit Retreat aboard a ship from a coastal province? If in a port? If already "loaded" into a ship before the province is even attacked?

I'm not finding this in the manual, wiki or web search, yet it must come up at times.

Thanks,

Sir Garnet

 

[marxianTJ]

In some *very* rare cases, you can physically cross straits that would've required boats to cross - but such crossings are quite rare. In general if you want to escape into the sea you *must* use transports of some type or all of the units will be lost.

Rearguard actions are primarily limited to: when you have troops fighting in a province, you can withdraw some of them, so that they get a head start, while the rest in province fight on.

You can also try to inject troops into a vacated province which your divisions have retreated from - but that typically requires a preemptive head start, very fast units, or some sort of INFRA disaster on provinces which are invading you (they've been log bombed to 0).

I'm pretty sure if you're *already* loaded then you're a-ok, I don't seem to recall troops spilling out of transports.

 

[Cavalry]

The amphibious attack unit can can retreat back to a transport, didn't know about other. The easiest way to evacuate the units is in a port, by transport. You will need to use a unit to attack the enemy to avoid them attack your own unit, to make a load ship order. If the enemy is attacking you, then cannot make an order to load ship.

 

[SirArthur]

Singapore, Gibraltar, Dunkirk, or some other port or simply a coastline - when being pressed by the enemy, where, when and how do troops get away by ship and when are they stuck to win or die?

Do rearguards allow units ordered to Retreat from the same province to get away?

Can a unit Retreat aboard a ship from a coastal province? If in a port? If already "loaded" into a ship before the province is even attacked?

I'm not finding this in the manual, wiki or web search, yet it must come up at times.

Thanks,

Sir Garnet

If there is a troop transport nearby you can simply move a unit into that transport with the strategic deployment command (usually Strg+move) order. Also if the battle is lost and there is no other retreat way, the units will retreat to the transports.

 

[Sir Garnet]

Thank you - this is my summary from the comments:

Evacuation or retreat by sea requires transports.*
*Retreat across straits that otherwise requires movement by transport is allowed in a few exceptional cases.

Land units (including those retreating from an amphibious landing) that have no other retreat path will retreat to available transports (whether in the province port or an adjoining sea province). {Click on what location on the map to retreat if the transports are in port?}

Cannot order a unit under attack to load onto a transport. Troops already loaded on transports in port are not unloaded in the event the province is attacked [confirmed].

Strategic redeployment can be used to move on to a transport.

Rearguard tactics include pre-emptively attacking an enemy stack likely to attack the evacuation province so other troops may freely be loaded in port and shipped out, or retreating some troops while others continue fighting.

Also, if attacking adjoining enemy, it may be possible to break off the attacks and quickly load aboard and sail away.{confirm?}

 

[Sir Garnet]

Edited above. It also appears that troops will not retreat aboard Allied-controlled transports, but will disappear instead, based on the following: Spanish Republican infantry and detachments did not board Allied transports (80 capacity) offshore or an Allied-controlled Spanish transport (40 capacity) expeditionary force in harbor when a surrounded port fell. Is this right?

 

[vector1]

That is correct, your troops only evacuate on your ships. Another good example would be French troops not evacuating on English transports during the battle for France!

This is also why in MP games we typically exped troops for overseas action to a single commander/country. This allows for better command and control + taking advantage of naval units. It would be a disaster if troops were stuck and unable to be exped in time for evacuation.

 

[Sir Garnet]

It suggests that tag switching to exped the troops and the transport would be a reasonable accommodation in single-player as well, for either side.

 

[vector1]

Depends on the player .