GS 3.0 Plaid Axis vs Morris Allies

[Morris]

Hi everyone :

Here is my first Allies game in 3.0 . Since I use Dyle plan in this pbem , I 'd like to introduce this pbem by AAR . This AAR is opened to everyone including Mr Plaid . Welcome to visit & common !



Turn 1 Sept 1 st 1939 fair

Axis invade Poland ,Poland will surely dead next turn . We use our STR to find that the corp in Frankfort was transfered to somewhere not Polland front . It must be a preparation for a Norway invasion . So we decide to try Dyle plan to see how it will work in 3.0 . Meanwhile we concentrate RN's power to prepare to help Norway !

[GogTheMild]

As the Axis I have already been Dyled in 3.0. I thought that it worked well for the Allies .

[Morris]

Turn 2

Sept 21st 1939 fair

Poland surrender .
Axis seems quit the Norway invasion plan since Allies conquered Belgium . French troops move into Belgium to dig in .

[Morris]

As the Axis I have already been Dyled in 3.0. I thought that it worked well for the Allies .

You gave me big pressure ! hehehe !

[GogTheMild]

Morris, I am struggling a little to follow your screen shots. I assume that you Dyled in turn 1? And ended in the positions shown in your SS of the start of turn 2? And that for some reason the Axis didn't react? I note that at the start of turn 2 both Liege and Antwerp are empty .

[Plaid]

Morris, I am struggling a little to follow your screen shots. I assume that you Dyled in turn 1? And ended in the positions shown in your SS of the start of turn 2? And that for some reason the Axis didn't react? I note that at the start of turn 2 both Liege and Antwerp are empty .

There was no opportunity to enter Antwerp or Liege without DoWing Holland.
All I could do was DoW Holland and enter Liege with garrison, but I thought it is not worthy. Probably it was in fact.

[Morris]

Morris, I am struggling a little to follow your screen shots. I assume that you Dyled in turn 1? And ended in the positions shown in your SS of the start of turn 2? And that for some reason the Axis didn't react? I note that at the start of turn 2 both Liege and Antwerp are empty .

There was no opportunity to enter Antwerp or Liege without DoWing Holland.
All I could do was DoW Holland and enter Liege with garrison, but I thought it is not worthy. Probably it was in fact.

Mr Plaid was quite right . I launched Dyle plan just because I found Axis transfered the Frankfort corp away & almost no corp defence the west .

At that situation , to conquer Liege by a Gar by Dow Holland (all troops in full strength) maybe not a good business .

[Peter Stauffenberg]

I would say it's quite risky to not keep quite a few forces in the west as the Axis against Morris. He's known to like doing the Dyle.

If you are hit with a Dyle it doesn't matter that much. The Germans can snipe at the French forces during the winter and inflict some kills. Holland needs to be taken out on turn 3 so you widen the front. France won't get any more units because of a Dyle so when you make a hole you ooze through.

The Canadian forces won't arrive earlier as they did before. Once the smoke has settled in the west and Paris taken then the Allies will pay the price for doing the Dyle. France will fall a bit later and Sealion will probably not happen, but long term I think the Axis will compensate for the initial deficit.

It's good for the game that a Dyle plan is still possible to execute. That means more variety and not a standard sitzkrieg situation in all games.

[Morris]

Turn 3

Oct 11th 1939 mud


Bad weather luck for Axis . French just got a chance to take a breath & dig in !

[Plaid]

I would say it's quite risky to not keep quite a few forces in the west as the Axis against Morris. He's known to like doing the Dyle.

If you are hit with a Dyle it doesn't matter that much. The Germans can snipe at the French forces during the winter and inflict some kills. Holland needs to be taken out on turn 3 so you widen the front. France won't get any more units because of a Dyle so when you make a hole you ooze through.

The Canadian forces won't arrive earlier as they did before. Once the smoke has settled in the west and Paris taken then the Allies will pay the price for doing the Dyle. France will fall a bit later and Sealion will probably not happen, but long term I think the Axis will compensate for the initial deficit.

It's good for the game that a Dyle plan is still possible to execute. That means more variety and not a standard sitzkrieg situation in all games.

As a victim of this "Dyle plan" I will give you some spoilers.

1. Turn 3 was mud, so were turns 4 and 5, but I don't think this matters this much. Problem is that it is hard to conquer Holland at bad weather, when all their units are full strength and full effectiveness. It is possible, but hard and take time (up to 3 turns) and casualties.
2. France will fall "a bit later" indeed - now it is december 1940 and I am still struggling to capture Paris. (Also no other operations were conducted in 1940 at all - full focus on France and still very poor progress. Even Denmark is still neutral).
3. This is old "good" massive BEF strategy with airforce exploint (in old times units suffered morale loss only in France, so allied players hide their fighters in Britain to avoid this - it was fixed and for a reason). Now with "Dyle plan" allies do not suffer morale drop at all and guess what? Now 100+ air casualties for luftwaffe in 1940 are back. It is 500+ German PPs just to repair air units - think about it.
4. German ground casualties are also exeptionally high since Morris used UK PPs to build more mechs and send them to France aswell as Canadian reserves.
All this troops managed to create stalemate for most of 1940 campaign - Germans captured Brusseles only in August and reached Paris in November.

So I consider "Dyle plan" broken allied strategy, as it is low risk (if axis are overall lucky and get favourable weather you lose France couple of turns earlier maybe) and very high reward (just see what will happen in this AAR).

You can say that I just whine because I lost and probably you are right, but it just feels wrong to struggle in France until 1941.

[Vokt]

Although there must be an alternative to sitzkrieg strategy IMO that thing should be chosen by the axis player only, not by the allied one. I mean that this a WW2 based game and WW2 meant an agression war started by Germany, not France. So if we see that Dyle option becomes too profitable for the allies in terms of both axis delayed campaigns elsewhere and increased losses may be we can start thinking in increasing the penalties for the allies if they decide to DoW Belgium. I am thinking, for instance, in activating Holland in axis side in case of Dyle. This way, Germany could rail units right in the next turn after allied invasion to Holland, so even the french would be enjoying Canal Alberto defensive position it won't be that good as when the axis has to face that bottleneck formed in belgian border. Furthermore, 100% Belgium and Holland PP's going for Germany should be definitely enough to make the allied player think twice about invading Belgium.

[GogTheMild]

When I got Dyled in 3.0 I had an ARM and a MECH already railed west, as well as the two INF already there. So I was able to DOW Holland and drive into Belgium. This avoided a catastrophe. But the Dutch being at full strength means that as of May 1940 I still haven't captured Arnhem. Also, my push to prevent the Allies establishing a solid line along the Albert Canal left an ARM exposed and the full strength, full eff, Tech 1 Blitz French took it out in turn 2. Losing an Axis ARM before the end of September 1939 must be some sort of ignominious record. Paris fell in April, but the casualty bill, especially for air units, was horrific. And the commitment from the BEF was minimal. Effectively the game is over.

So even with the maximum possible preparation by the Axis, it seems that Dyle is a game winner for the Allies; or at least gives them a significant advantage. (As if things weren't already unbalanced enough in their favour.)

It probably needs more people trying a Dyle to draw firm conclusions. Given the advantages it seems to yield, I don't think that will take long.

[Kragdob]

Besides it was politically impossible. France was not mentally able to do Blitzkrieg.

[richardsd]

Besides it was politically impossible. France was not mentally able to do Blitzkrieg.

Its just my point of view, but I don't think the option for a Dyle plan by France should exist. It just wasn't politically a real option.

But if we are going to offer it then we need to make it more painful - much more painful. Holland activating as the Axis seems right by the way - just based on gut feel

[pk867]

The Dyle Plan was conceived in Mar of 1940 to stave off the expected German attack during Fall Gelb.
So Germany would have to declare war on the Low Countries and invade for this to take place.
France and Belgium had a military treaty so that French forces could assist the Belgians in time of war.
But, Belgium changed their cooperation 1936 to one of strict neutrality.
It goes back to the political picture in ww2. The western allies would not purposely declare war on one of their allies.

IMO the Western Allies can not DoW on countries that are their neutral Allies if you want to have the expansion play somewhat historically.
The League of Nations was a big part of this that consignitories of the League oof nations could assist, but mostly diplomatically and then decide if military action was warranted.
We have tried to handle with most of the situations which could have occurred which is what the players want, but there are unknown reasons why some of the
ideas put forth of what could happen, but not executed.
At the moment the current play is there until players would like to see a change, but in all fairness to execute what is done in the AAR's take lots of practice and skill.
So you may not encounter it. If something becomes a norm that was not the norm in the past then IMO the tactic or game play loophole needs to be adjusted to player's satisfaction.

[Vokt]

I see what Paul has brought here. Even Dyle plan has to be executed correctly for being completely effective meaning that if an unexperienced player try with Dyle option the results could be radically different than when executed by an experienced player as Morris. But the opponent that Morris has in this game is also experienced so Plaid's comments must be had into account. Struggling in France that late seems to be demonstrative that something must be done here. Activating Holland was one idea but many more could be included like a really delayed USA or USSR entry at war. I mean that Dyle option seems to be a rather comfortable option for the allies so he knows for sure the outcome of this plan: delay of the axis much more than in a normal game. Allied player should face that by DoWing Belgium the outcome of the game will be much more uncertain instead.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

A lot would have been different if Plaid and sent some units westwards on turn 1 like the corps units starting in the west. Then these units could capture Liege and Antwerp going through Holland. DoW Holland on turn 2 and then attack with more strength on turn 3 and later.

Plaid got unlucky with the weather with no fair weather in October / November. That doesn't happen often. Less than 1 in 16 games. Holland would have fallen in 1939 if one of these turns had been fair.

We don't want to shoe horn people into following the historical path. Invading Belgium in 1939 was certainly feasible for the Allies.

What seems a bit weird is that Belgium can be overrun on turn 1. One way to prevent this is to slightly alter the Allied initial deployment. The UK fighter could be stationed in Nottingham instead of at the English channel. This way the fighter has more normal coverage over England and would have to move on turn 1 to have range to Belgium.

The French fighter could be deployed close to Paris outside range of Brussels. French mech units could be deployed closer to Paris so only 2 units (corps + 1 mech) can reach Paris on turn 1.

This way the French could have to move to the border on turn 1 to do Dyle on turn 2. That means the Germans can rail units on turn 2 to the border against Holland and have a better chance to DoW Holland and get to Liege and Antwerp on turn 3.

A turn 2 Dyle is probably not as attractive as a turn 1 Dyle.

Another possibility could be that the Dutch would not mobilize at full strength if attached in 1939 even if Belgium was attacked in a prior turn.

[Peter Stauffenberg]

I tried an Allied turn 1 Dyle on Belgium and actually failed to take Brussels on several occasions. The Belgian unit in Liege is hidden for the Allies so if you move the French corps towards Brussels east of Brussels you will get stopped and can't attack. So you need to move a garrison closer to Liege to spot it. Then ZOC means you can't reach the hex anyway.

The Belgian garrison south of Brussels can only be attacked by French garrison units if you want to have 3 corps units against Brussels. It's not a given the garrison units can kill the Belgian unit to clear the way. You have to make a retreat so you get 3 garrison units on it.

Even then one French mech has to attack across river. The times I managed to take Brussels then both the UK and French fighters both inflicted damage on Brussels.

So you don't have to alter the unit setup a lot to lower the chances of a turn 1 Dyle even further. E. g. moving the UK fighter and either the French fighter or 1 French mech unit can be enough to drop the chances to a bit less than 50%. If Brussels doesn't fall in 1 turn the Allies will be doomed if they make a Dyle. Then the Germans rail German units into Liege and Brussels and won't lose Belgium at all.

[Plaid]

Chance to success of Dyle turn 1 is pretty high. I just tested it, and it worked 9 of 11 times.

1. Spot Liege defenses with RAF bomber.
2. Attack 5 step garrison SW of Brusseles with corps from Paris. Garrison was destroyed OR retreated north in all tests.



Now just go all-out vs Brusseles - hit it with 2 fighters, then with mech (3), mech(4) and corps (5) [none of attacks - cross river].



As an emergency you can try to use 2 garrisons near Lille to finish off Belgian garrison and attack Brusseles from NW aswell, but it did not work both times for me - garrison failed to take last step of Belgian corps.

[Morris]

Yes , Mr Plaid is quite right . It is very easy to take Belgium in turn 1 . Some times after two FTR attack , the Brussell's defender will probably reduced to 3 steps & only one mech can accomplish the mission .

But Regarding to the changes against this strategy , I don't think it is really necessary . If Axis just don't transfer the Frankfort & Essen corps & move one of them in Cologne sothat they can conquer the Leige after Dyle . I think it will make much better situation for Axis .

Anyway , if we have to change something to against this strategy , we can just forbid Allies to dow Belgium or make Holland surrender automatically to Germany after Belgium is conquered by Allies .