Netherlands invasion

[Courtenay]

The Germans always want to do an early invasion of the Netherlands. The problem is Rotterdam; if the Dutch INF sets up in Amsterdam, a land attack can not capture Rotterdam.

There has long been a solution for this: an amphibious invasion of Rotterdam, supported by a corps from the adjacent hex.

The Allies have long had a counter for this: a large fleet in the North Sea, to eat the German invasion.

The Germans have had a number of possible strategies in response to this; I list them, most conservative first:

1) Wait until you have your PAR.
Problem: Takes way, way too long.

2) Wait until you have the first move of turn, and try the invasion on the first turn of an impulse, when the Allied fleet is not so strong.
Problems: You might not get the first impulse, the weather might be horrible, and it takes time.

3) Send out a division on a single cruiser, and hope that everyone rolls badly on search rolls.
Problem: The odds are a good deal worse than 50% that this will work. If it does, great, if not, then you have three British units in Rotterdam, not to mention a dead cruiser and INF.

4) Send out most of the fleet, with two divisions, and hope that your AA is good enough and Allied search rolls bad enough that a division gets through.
Problem: Still chancy, and liable to get a lot of your fleet eaten.

I have come up with a new (to me; I am sure others have thought of it) strategy:

5) Invade from the one box: Send out a large fleet, with two divisions, to the one box. (Be sure to use the old BBs; get some use from them.) Have at least two, if not three FTRs that can react to the one box. These will totally outclass the Allied carrier air, and the odds that the Allies will get through the German surface ships to get both divisions are low.

I am still trying to figure out an Allied counter to this counter. If the Allies had a NAV on the first turn, sending FTRs to the one box with a NAV would probably be a good idea, but they don't. Drop a carrier down to the one box, to give the FTRs one more search number? You are splitting the Allied fleet awfully thin.

Just keep the fleet in the high boxes? I ran the battle through a few times, and while the Allies frequently sank a bunch of German cruisers, the invasion almost always got through. (The one time it didn't the Allies had a 2-9 search split, and could target both German ships carrying XXs.) And the Allies are likely to lose some CVPs.

Invading from the one box means that the Rotterdam notional will defend with a strength of 3 (1 for the notional, -1 surprise, +1 city, +2 invading from one box), but the Germans are strong enough to deal with this, even though they will have no shore bombardment.

[rkr1958]

I'd be interested in seeing any statistics you might have accumulated during all your trials.

I usually deploy the French CV, often with a 4-range CVP, 2 of their older battleships along with an RN CVL & 2-3 older BBs to the 3-box to screen any CW transports that I might send out to react to a invasion of Denmark, Netherlands or Belgium if there's an opening. Additionally I have a strong 2 BB, CV w/4-range CVP & CA RN & 3 RN/French cruiser force in the 4-box.

I understand that with your strategy the German invasion will likely get through but with losses. Honestly, I'd happily trade French BBs and even French/CW CVPs for sunk and damaged KM cruisers and battleships. Unless the turn ends the allies will also get another shot at the KM in the following allied impulse.

Another thing, with German fighters having to provide coverage for the KM in the 1-box, this leaves the Reich open to unopposed strategic bombing attacks.

I guess, for me at least, it comes down to how expensive is too expensive for an early takeout of Netherlands that, with high probability (?), locks the CW out of Rotterdam?

[Courtenay]

I did not make enough attempts to create anything that I would dream to call reliable statistics. It was somewhere between 6-10 attempts. A few worked simply because no one found each other -- these don't really help show the value of the tactic, because a single cruiser would have worked just as well. In the remainder, somewhat over half the time the Germans lost several cruisers, sinking French battleships in response. (Many more cruisers were lost than battleships.) A few times the Allied carrier air arm got severely punished. And once the dice went ridiculously in the favor of the Allies in the air combat. (Germans roll 11. Allies roll 3. Thanks.) Only once did the invasion fail -- the Allies got the benefit of a 2-9 surprise split, so were able to force a surface combat, and pick two targets for Xs, the ships carrying the two INF divisions.

As the German player, I regard spending cruisers to keep the British out of Rotterdam to be worth it. After all, historically the Germans spent those cruisers getting Norway, and Rotterdam is worth a lot more than Norway. The Allies, of course, don't mind losing French battleships at all. Taking the Netherlands and not taking Rotterdam does the Germans very little good in the invasion of Belgium. With Rotterdam, things are much better.