Taking out France before Poland?

[Saltynuts]

Anyone ever tried this, or have thoughts on it? Now, I know that the Polish border is bigger and thus ties down more troops, so it would seem not to make sense, but hear me out. Assume I have enough troops to guard the Polish border AND take France.

So I put my slow infantry up against the Polish border to prevent them invading into Germany.

Meanwhile, my faster units crush France. I don't think Poland has to be defeated for Vichy to fire (correct me if I'm wrong plz).

Then, as soon as Vichy fires, my faster units can rush east and crush Poland, and immediately thereafter strike against the SU.

So, it saves having to move units from the east, to the west, back to the east. Instead they start in the west and just head east.

Thoughts?

 

[Pang Bingxun]

So I put my slow infantry up against the Polish border to prevent them invading into Germany.

By spamming Garrisions this surely is doable. You can exhaust your entire manpower in time for Danzig by building many formations of 5 Gar1939-Art1940 + 1 Gar1939-Eng. Combine this with building a few land forts you have a cheap and very efficient defensive army. Once you have assembly line tech you can grudually disband this phony army and start building a real army and use around Mech1942-SpArt1940 in 1941 to end such a prolonged phony war by some real Blitzkrieg.

Then, as soon as Vichy fires, my faster units can rush east and crush Poland, and immediately thereafter strike against the SU.

So, it saves having to move units from the east, to the west, back to the east. Instead they start in the west and just head east.

That is a very minor concern. Much more relevant are ESE and weather. You want to attack soviet union when both are favourable, but the france first approach hurts that. Practically speaking the idea has no merits.

 

[Commander666]

Historically the winter of 1941 was the worst on record. Hitler couldn't have timed it worse than starting Barbarossa Spring 1941 and still fighting when that monster winter arrived. So, attacking France first might be efficient in the long run as regards different winters. The actual moving across Europe a couple times is relatively minor to other concerns - especially who is the weakest when you start WW2. Will that be Poland or France? In fact, what date do you plan to launch this scheme?

Greatest conquest efficiency comes with selecting your opponents to defeat them serially... and taking on stronger enemies as your own army gets bigger and better.

If doing France first, you want a solid defense on your eastern border. Get Hungary into the Axis.... and together with a lot of GAR/ART placed on your northern flank, Hungary can hold the southern half of the line. You should be able to stop any Polish attack against your dug in GAR using TACS simply bombing the other way.

BE SURE that EVERY STACK OF GAR has in it ONE ENG BRIGADE to double the dug in bonus (20 increases to 40).

 

[Saltynuts]

So I used this strategy crushed France and caused Vichey, then my mobiles (cavalry mainly) were at the Polish border and attacking in no time. November 7, 1939, annexed Poland. How's that, timing wise?

 

[Commander666]

Did you start with Danzig event?

I had actually made an earlier post here setting out possible timetable, but then deleted it.

I am not sure how to answer your question as I never tried it myself. But I can provide some timelines by which you can judge your "timing question" on your own.

A good attack on France (including Luxembourg, Netherlands and Belgium) is one month for Vichy Event to fire. It has been done in 10 days but that was using 5 paratroopers, and very good luck as regards the weekly check "if Vichy conditions met" having occurred right after the 25% of France provinces taken occurred. It is not usual that once victory conditions are meet, event will not fire for up to a week waiting for the check to be made (as that is done only weekly).

I believe any logical German conquest must secure the Kattegat Straits. It should be no more than 3 days for Denmark to fold her army (especially an early attack when it only has 1 or 2 divisions in Copenhagen), so allow a week extra for that including moving units as needed.

It takes about 2 months more to fix up all mentioned so far since repair at maximum is not possible given so large a conquest done so quickly. This time will see the Wehrmacht moved from France to Polish border.

A good attack on Poland is only a week (it has been done in 5 days). But allow for 2 weeks since things are much more complicated since you already have incurred concerns regarding fortifying the Atlantic Wall. Repair will be another 1 week - provided repair rate was at near maximum once Poland invasion started.

So adding that up: 1 month, 1 week, 2 months and 3 weeks = 4 moths total.

Starting September 1st 1939, it should all be finished (provincial repairs at near zero) by Dec 30th 1939.

IF YOU STARTED HISTORIC DATE, it seems that annexing Poland (with Vichy fired) by November 7th 1939 is very good. Only, did you secure the Kattegat Straits.... or are you overlooking that?

You make very well a different point: CAV-4 in 1939 simply are the best all-around unit and rightly deserve the title of "Poor Man's Armor".

So what's next.... attacking SU in June 1940; or attack soon after Stalin starts the Winter War with Finland? I would guess the latter would be best ... and your many CAV-4 will do just fine. Certainly there is little time to change them for MOTs or ARM. Suggest giving them all brigades (and about 1/3 give AT brigade to decrease their softness), and their overall slower speed will actually co-ordinate better with a mostly infantry army lacking any major mobile segment (MOTs MECH, ARM).

You may want to start thinking about a navy to take British Isles since it should be possible to get Bitter Peace sooner than it takes to build a Bismarck.

Good luck!

 

[Pang Bingxun]

So I used this strategy crushed France and caused Vichey, then my mobiles (cavalry mainly) were at the Polish border and attacking in no time. November 7, 1939, annexed Poland. How's that, timing wise?

Not better than doing it the other way around. If you take the historic approach you can take poland in about 7 days, so that is before 1939/09/06 when all future vp of poland are taken, but as some vp may not have switched to soviet union in time the actual annexation may take a litte longer. Still this does not prevent you from moving your mobiles west already, this again should take only about seven days. So the war in the west starts at 1939/09/13. Taking Netherlands and Belgium might take around 7 further days. Till all swamps are taken and the provinces switch ownership to you some further time may pass, but this should not stop to move the great majority of your mobiles into france. France is allowed require more time, but not too much, avoiding rains or even winter has a high priority. Provided you used a strong build up of Mot-SpArt 2 weeks should suffice to take most of france in the sense that the conditions for vichy are met. So Vichy might fire from 1939/10/04 onwards. It probably would be in october when the weather is expected to turn worse, but the weather turning for worse after the fighting and moving is done does not bother me in "temperate" climate. And if some remaining forces of france attack in such weather it will harm them, which is favouring germany. By mid october vichy should have fired. If france had lost 40% of its national provinces it should fire within 3 days, that would be 1939/10/07.

Once vichy has fired and all territory is secured you can strategically redeploy(that will be safer and cheaper) your troops to the east. That may take around 2 weeks and another 7 days to reach high levels in Org. By the end of october your troops would be ready to invade the soviet union, in november the soviet winter war against finnland creates an opportunity for that. Please note that before declaring war against soviet union you need to break the pact of nonaggression. That causes 5% dissent and creates a delay of 7 days till you can declare war. A war prior to may 1940 is inadvisable due to this dissent. The pact of nonaggression expires 23 hours before may 1940.

 

[Commander666]

So I used this strategy...

Just wondering what you did regarding the M-R Pact. I imagine you made "no deal with the Bolsheviks" which should let you grab all of Poland which is much better for reaching Moscow sooner.... and that way there is no historic "sharing Poland" agreement with SU to worry about.

There is also the non-aggression pact that existed in 1936 that I imagine still exists and would need cancelling. As long as any dissent related to that does not exceed 5%, the conquest plan should be quite workable.

While dissent during war is never nice, given Germany's fast ability to eliminate that, small dissent is OK. In fact, learning to cope with dissent during war is essential for Germany to capitalize on timely liberation of Ukraine and Byelorussia to so greatly enhance frontline ESE. Just limit it to 5% maximum.

 

[Saltynuts]

Heyas guys. Sorry for delay - just got back from vacation.

I definitely to the historical route and attacked France at Danzig. I didn't use a single garrison unit - I just used what infantry I already had (didn't build a single unit) on my eastern front while I took out France with my cavalry (I have SPA attached to every one - anti-tank recommended on some of them it sounds like?) (and I have ART on almost all my infantry - sounds like I should have one with engineer in each stack). Then as soon as vichey fired rolled my horses east. Almost as soon as they got there SU went to war with Finland, so as with last game I broke immediately broke NA pact and attacked. It seems even easier than last game. My units are just rolling through the SU.

I went with go with Italy and Japan, and also did the historical agreement with the SU (I typically don't do either, but Japan seems pretty cool haha and it seems if I don't go with historical agreement I get some dissent right when I'm about to go to war).

Did not take Denmark (kettleberg straghts or whatever), or even Netherlands or Norway. I figure once Bitter Peace fires (and I'm going to go back and read the thread where you guys talked about holding off on conquering a province or two to maximize the countries I can liberate before it fires), I'll take those, take the UK isles very easily, then, unlike last game, attack the U.S. very quickly, but I'll probably go through south america and run my way up. I'm thinking subs again - heavy subs I have darned good luck with other than last game verse the U.S., where I attacked them way too late for them to be effective.

Any thoughts are helpful. More to come!

 

[Saltynuts]

Crap, I was just thinking - is it those garrison units that reduce dissent/increase ESE a good bit? Maybe I should have built some, ooops! But SU seems to be a cakewalk thus for, so maybe it doesn't matter. At least I did remember to build the 200% infra line to Rostock and to Polish border.

 

[Commander666]

I'm thinking subs again - heavy subs I have darned good luck with other than last game verse the U.S., where I attacked them way too late for them to be effective.

While subs can kill whole fleets in early game, in later games the USA AI with modern DDs properly brigaded ends the "Happy Days"

sounds like I should have one with engineer in each stack)

No it doesn't. The recommendation was to increase dug in bonus - hardly relevant except if a defensive line.

At least I did remember to build the 200% infra line to Rostock and to Polish border.

I think that is very secondary to building many things you don't - like some GAR, etc

A 200% line to Outlet for higher worldwide ESE is good, but increasing to Polish border is very little benefit as ESE drops hugely once a couple provinces inside 80-infra Poland. Increasing Breslau and Oppeln infra for resources pretty much satisfies any ESE concerns since we are discussing only "Berlin to original eastern Polish border" given your accelerated attack thru Poland and immediately onwards to SU.

It is quite different to take Poland normally and, while waiting for Barbarossa, build up infra SOMEWHAT on your new Eastern Front to assist breaking thru the SU line. But that was only to about 100 infra, as - again - a couple provinces into SU and that ESE drops as to the lowest provincial infra in the line - which is mostly just 60% going into Russia.